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I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 1 



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LATE MILITARY REVOLUTION 



IN 



BUENOS AYRES, 



ASSASSINATION OF GOVERNOR DORREGO; 

BEING THE TRANSLATION OF AN 

EXPOSITION, ADDRESSED TO THE UNITED PROVINCES 
OF THE RIVER PLATE, 

BY 

CZTZZEN DR. MANUEL MORENO, 

ENVOY EXTRAORDINARY AND MINISTER PLENIPOTENTIARY OF THE 
ARGENTINE REPUBLIC NEAR H. B. M. 



IN ANSWER TO ATTACKS, PUBLISHED IN THE BUENOS AYRES 
JOURNALS, CALLED THETIEMPO & PAMPERO, 

ACCOMPANIED BY 

ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS. 



LONDON: 

PUBLISHED BY JOHN RICHARDSON, 91, AND WILSON, 88, ROYAL 
EXCHANGE. 



1829. 



REDFORD AND ROBINS, 
36, JLondon-road. 



x 






3 




X TRANSLATOR'S 



PRELIMINARY REMARKS 



A he late military Revolution in Buenos Ayres, 
which took place on the 1st of last December, 
followed by the scandalous assassination of Go- 
vernor Dorrego, at the moment excited such a lively 
indignation in the breasts of Englishmen, and more 
particularly of those who are connected with the 
Argentine Provinces, by their pursuits of trade, that 
no excuse is necessary for the publication of the ac- 
companying Exposition and Illustrative Documents, 
in an English dress. That interest has, indeed, 
since, considerably increased, through the outrage- 
ous conduct of the party wielding an usurped com- 
mand, which, besides completely dissolving the 
Federal Union, has brought a large, mixed, and irri- 
tated army round the capital, and thus placed the 
inhabitants in a most perilous emergency. It has 
also roused the hostility of the foreign residents, and 



IV 

the French Consul General, at length found himself 
compelled to embark, and, in retalliation, ordered 
the vessels belonging to the State to be seized. This 
dreadful calamity which had befallen the Argentine 
Republic, at a moment when it had just come out of 
a ruinous struggle, with credit to itself, and the new 
administration were making every exertion to heal 
the wounds of the country and reconstruct its foreign 
relations, according to the last accounts, had not 
reached its close, and, consequently, it would be 
impossible to present any thing like a regular out- 
line, or narrative, of the successive events, so early 
as this J but, in the mean while, it is an object of 
importance to know the origin and causes of a revo- 
lution, effected through the aid of an armed force, 
and followed by acts which cannot fail to be viewed 
with equal abhorrence in Europe. 

It is, in fact, the common duty of those nations, in 
the happy enjoyment of firm and consolidated go- 
vernments, to condemn the ambitious designs of 
restless leaders, setting at naught the laws of their 
own country, and, in order to satisfy their thirst for 
power, wading through the blood of their fellow- 
citizens to the Presidential chair. This sympathy 
the British public owe to the suffering inhabitants of 
the United Provinces of the Rher Plate; they in- 



deed look for it from us, and the stronger the de- 
monstrations of disapprobation and horror, the 
greater will be the effect in checking other aspiring 
men, from seeking to sacrifice their country's welfare 
and honour to their own personal aggrandizement. 
Crimes of this kind ought not to pass without cen- 
sure and punishment. The inhabitants of the Ar- 
gentine Provinces mean well, and although, com- 
paratively speaking, they may be called ignorant, 
the community is, nevertheless, composed of men of 
discernment and circumspect in their conduct. They 
must not be taken as an unreflecting and spiritless 
multitude, notwithstanding the little progress made 
in the consolidation of their Government. It has 
been their strange fatality, long to have been the 
victims of disguised patriots, or aspiring chieftains. 
At one time, they were ruled by men of emptiness, 
parade and ostentation, intent more on guilty pro - 
jects for their own private advantage, than anxious 
to promote the peace and welfare of their country, 
on enlarged views ; whilst, at another, they are ex- 
posed to the lawless and licentious enterprises of 
Pretorian guards. The public and the governments 
of Europe besides have a direct interest in the ces- 
sation of these horrors, and it must be their anxious 
wish that all these changes and vacillations should 
not recur. 



VI 

These facts will be rendered apparent by a perusal 
of the accompanying Exposition, deserving of more 
particular attention from the circumstance of its 
being written by a gentleman who, besides having 
gone through the revolutionary phases of his native 
land, with honour to himself, has had the oppor- 
tunity of long and attentive observation in England 
and the United States, the two best schools for 
the formation of public men. Dr. Manuel Moreno is 
a brother of the spirited individual who, as early as 
the year 1810, advocated a free system of trade with 
the British, as the best means of replenishing the 
empty coffers of the Viceregal government, on be- 
half of the land proprietors of Buenos Ayres, and, 
after distinguishing himself in the memorable changes 
which soon afterwards ensued, was the first Envoy 
sent over to Great Britain from the Independents of 
Buenos Ayres, and died on his passage over. The 
Exposition now offered to the public, therefore, 
possesses more than an ordinary interest, and it is, 
on this account, that the Translator ventures to 
recommend it to the notice of his countrymen, in- 
terested in Transatlantic topics. 

London, August 12, 1829. 



EXPOSITION, 



.Having been sent over, in the character of Envoy 
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from the 
Argentine Republic near His Britannic Majesty, in 
consequence of the glorious peace which the govern- 
ment had just concluded with Brazil, under the 
mediation of Great Britain, I was midway on the 
ocean and pursuing my voyage to England, when 
two factious Journalists, encouraged by the revo- 
lution of the 1st of December, (1828) began to pour 
forth the loudest invectives against a Mission, in- 
tended to return thanks to the illustrious Mediator, 
in the name of the United Provinces of the River 
Plate ; at the same time, levelling infamous charges 
and all kinds of insults against the Minister to whom 
it had been confided; whilst neither the interest 
which the nation had to comply with the duties of 
gratitude and policy; nor the considerations to which 



8 



the relations of a State are entitled ; the dignity of 
the government ; nor the respect due to decency, 
were sufficient to restrain their malevolent designs. 
The editors of the Tiempo and Pampero have filled 
several columns of their papers with imputations 
against my honour and character, alike disgraceful 
and unfounded, and I, for some time, hesitated 
whether such gross and wanton proofs of personal 
enmity ought not to he overlooked and left to ob- 
livion. The rancour of two enemies who, abusing 
the position in which they were placed, step forward 
to wield unprovoked libels in order to inflict wounds, 
and the want of liberality with which they attack 
the absent, indeed rather counselled silent contempt 
than the necessity of pausing to impugn them ; 
but, when from vague invectives, indicating only 
malignant feelings, they actually go so far as to 
accuse and condemn ; when, in the frantic delirium 
of their rage, they seek to convert the most innocent, 
if not, the most meritorious, actions into crimes of 
State ; when the express text of official documents 
is uncharitably violated ; the public archives eagerly 
ransacked, in search of proofs of crime, and even the 
obvious meaning of words perverted ; when, in the 
Argentine Republic, an audacious outcry proclaims 
that personalities ought to be the supreme law; 
when, in short, notwithstanding the nature of our 
institutions, persecutions and banishment, without a 
hearing, or any other form of trial, are made the 
order of the day, it would not only be weakness, but 
also injustice to ones self and country to allow the 
calumnies of two writers, thirsting for blood and 
seeking out fresh victims to sacrifice to their im- 



9 



placable fury, to pass unnoticed. In such a case as 
this, self-defence becomes necessary, in order to re- 
sist violence 5 and one can no longer delay the pain- 
ful task, or escape the humiliation, of answering 
them. 

In the peculiar situation in which our country was 
lately placed, we have seen it alleged, as a motive 
for the deposition of a first Magistrate, that he had 
abstained from replying to the scurrilous attacks 
which his enemies had the art of directing against 
him, through the medium of a public Journal ; and, 
it no longer appears prudent that this strange system 
of jurisprudence, which condemns the modest man, 
when he relies on the testimony of his own con- 
science, or trusts his vindication to the slow process 
of the laws, should be sanctioned by custom. It is, 
besides, proper that the Republic should see that I 
was sent, in a public character, near the most pow- 
erful Sovereign of Europe ; as well as that the 
Mission, confided to me, did not originate with the 
Government of Buenos Ayres ; but, rather emanated 
from that general Authority under which the peace 
was concluded and was, at the time, conducting the 
external relations, according to powers derived from 
the Provinces. It may be equally advisable to shew 
that the confidence of that same Authority, in its 
minister, was not misplaced. It is moreover ex- 
pedient that England should know that the Govern- 
ment of the Republic had not been wanting in its 
respect, by sending to the presence of her Sovereign 
an individual, altogether unworthy of obtaining this 
distinction. As regards the rest, I shall be very 
brief in what I have to say, because, upheld as I 

B 



10 



am, by facts, the strongest and most evident, plain 
truth is of itself sufficient to confound malice. 

The ostensible pretext under which the Journalists 
above mentioned attack me, is, because I exer- 
cised the duties of minister of the government and 
foreign relations, at the time the late administration 
came into power. From the performance of these 
duties, one fact results, the evidence of which alone, 
one would think, is sufficient to strike them dumb. 
Scarcely had a month elapsed from my entering 
into the Ministry, which was on the 20th of August, 
1827, when, towards the close of the ensuing Sep- 
tember, 1 tendered in my resignation, not so much 
through a wish to relieve myself from a burden which 
imperious circumstances had placed upon my should- 
ers, as the anxiety I felt to maintain perfect con- 
sistency in my principles, Although my resignation 
was, at the moment, strenuously opposed by the 
government, I nevertheless renewed it, a month after- 
wards, and finally, for the third time, in the follow- 
ing month of November, when I withdrew to my own 
home ; nor did I take cognizance of any public mat- 
ter, or, affix my signature to any act, until, in this 
posture of affairs, after refusing to comply with the 
solicitations of various friends of respectability, 
anxiously desirous that I should withdraw my re- 
signation, and who are now the best witnesses of the 
reasons which then withheld me, I was, at length, 
permitted to retire. 

I feel, at this precise moment, that great delicacy 
is necessary to touch upon this particular occur- 
rence \ and although the fact of my resignation, 
which at once exposed me to the displeasure and 



11 



prejudices of those in power, is the most irresistible 
argument that can possibly be opposed to the 
charges of my unjust detracters, I should never- 
theless have deprived my defence of this support, if 
it could, in the slightest degree, prove injurious to 
the memory of the unfortunate Chief, whose days 
terminated in so cruel a manner. Fortunately, the 
publicity of the occurrence alluded to and the causes 
of my withdrawing from the government, are far from 
opening the door to disclosures which, at the pre- 
sent period, could be held as savouring of either il- 
liberality, or ingratitude, and can only be viewed as 
the fair and obvious means of individual exculpation. 
In the Gazette of December, 1827, the last of my 
notes on the subject of my resignation was inserted. 
In it, I acknowledged that my joining the adminis- 
tration, had been attended with the most painful 
sacrifice of my own inclinations ; that the time, 
although short, as it was, which had elapsed since 
my admission into office, had increased the repug- 
nance with which I first accepted it ; and, finally, 
" that the responsibility which devolved upon me, in 
the character of a member of the government, added 
to the respect which I owed and was resolved to 
keep, to the principles which I had professed in the 
Congress, compelled me to withdraw; concluding 
by an assurance conveyed to the government that, 
in all times and situations, they would find me a 
subject, faithful to the laws." This prominent fact, 
alone, shews that my ideas of the government were 
not in accordance with the line pursued by the ad- 
ministration, and that this difference arose out of my 
adhesion to principles which I had constantly sus- 



12 



tained in the Congress, not less than in the Provin- 
cial Junta; whilst, at the same time, this consistency, 
on my part, evidently demonstrated that, in my 
opinion, the responsibility of a minister was not an 
empty sound. 

This explanation alone might suffice for my apo- 
logy. The ambitious man treats office, as ordinary 
ones do life, endeavouring to prolong it, as much 
as they can ; whilst, on the contrary, he who guides 
his actions by the dictates of his conscience ; who, 
by observation and study, has formed to himself 
fixed notions of policy, and has also had an oppor- 
tunity of admiring great models, endeavours to 
descend from an elevated position which, although 
surrounded with attractions, he cannot occupy with 
honour to himself, or advantage to his countrymen. 
This example of respect to principles, which, among 
us, I will venture to call new, at least, carried to 
such a point as this, was the offspring of the will 
and reason, and did not originate in either necessity, 
or events. Here, however, it is, that I should like 
our Journalists to explain themselves. Either the 
administration alluded to was bad, in which case, my 
withdrawing from it was a laudable act 5 or, if it 
was good, which they by no means feel disposed to 
concede, the writings by which they have unceas- 
ingly assailed it, can be no other than a series of 
impostures. Why, is it, that they censure me, in 
the character of a minister, and, at the same time, 
are silent on my retirement from office ? Why do 
they conceal that the government existed fifteen 
months, whilst I was only a part of it, during three, 
and in the manner already pointed out ? How is it, 



13 



that nothing occurs to them against the conduct of 
those who formed the administration, up to the 1st 
of last December ? Are not these strong indications 
of their partiality and bad faith ? Is it possible to 
avoid being struck by the barefaced manner in which 
they dispose of the most remarkable facts ; or sup- 
press them, according to their own whim and fancy, 
in order to give freer scope to their malice ? What 
confidence can writers of this class expect to inspire, 
by rash expedients, like these ? 

Let us, however, listen to the charges which these 
Gentlemen gravely seek to raise up against the ad- 
ministration of ninety days. Having received per- 
mission to ransack the most recondite archives, a 
confidential legacy which, in regular governments, 
passes to the successor, under the well understood 
obligation of caution and reserve, if they had been 
fortunate enough to find documents whereby my 
proceedings could be blamed, the reader may be well 
assured, that they would not have felt inclined to 
secret them. In their dispositions, nothing like in- 
dulgence was to be expected. After all, however, 
they produce only one charge, whence it may be in- 
ferred that they discovered grounds for no more ; 
not even fictitious ones, in order to gratify their 
grovelling desires. Nevertheless, this single charge 
which they have thought proper to prefer, with a 
view to serve their own ends, is nothing less than 
an imputation of treason, and therefore punishable 
by proscription, or death ; consequently, it must be 
repelled. 

In order to answer this wanton and base charge, it 
is necessary to go back and look at the events which 



14 



preceded S l - Dorrego's appointment to the govern- 
ment of Buenos Ayres, as well as the circumstances 
under which it was conferred. It would be to no 
purpose to dwell on details, as the occurrences al- 
luded to hear a date so recent, that few of the traces 
can be effaced from the minds of the inhabitants of 
the City, or those of the federated Provinces. 

In June, 1827, the Republic was strenuously en- 
gaged in the war with the Brazilian Empire, at the 
same time that a civil strife, which commenced on 
account of the Presidency, convulsed the Provinces 
of the Union, and an effective and strict blockade 
besides closed all access to the River Plate. The 
wants and privations of the inhabitants had, about 
this period, risen to an enormous height ; the public 
revenue did not suffice to cover a tenth part of the 
expences ; whilst all the resources of the public 
credit were exhausted. The government, after with- 
drawing from the Bank considerable sums, and 
obliging that establishment to resort to new issues 
which daily increased the prevailing alarm, was 
paralysed by the apprehension of a national bank- 
ruptcy. The Congress continued its sittings in 
Buenos Ayres; but, without having any authority 
over the mass of the nation. It had, in fact, lost 
the public confidence, by taking imprudent measures 
and violating the laws ; acts which the people were 
neither disposed to pardon, nor forget. The great 
majority of the Provinces had also just rejected the 
Constitution proposed to them, owing to its being in 
opposition to their wishes. 

The civil war had, moreover, been carried on with 
as much warmth and acrimony as the foreign one ; 



15 



whilst the blood of citizens flowed copiously, for 
several months, in the various rencontres which oc- 
curred ; collisions which, during the progress of this 
unhappy contest, had aggravated the prevailing ani- 
mosities, and this lamentable state of things was 
followed by complaints, acts of vengeance, and uni- 
versal dismay, throughout the whole country. In a 
word, the Provinces considered the authority of the 
President as illegal, and this was the real cause of 
the national calamity. The league of the Provinces, 
among themselves, consisted of Cordova, Santa Fe, 
Entre-Rios, Corrientes, Rioja, Catamarca, Santiago 
del Estero, and San Luis. That of San Juan also 
withheld its obedience from the capital, and refused 
to allow the circulation of the Bank paper ; at the 
same time that the Province of Mendoza had just 
threatened to take up arms and join the banners of 
the rest. So great was the general confusion, at the 
period above alluded to, that there was a decided 
separation and opposition of ten Provinces, out of 
the thirteen, composing the Republic, including that 
of the Eastern Bank, where the army was at the 
time stationed, and which probably, on this account, 
did not venture to disobey. Finally, the President's 
party was overcome. 

At this juncture, all hopes of making peace with 
the Emperor, had likewise vanished. The nego- 
tiations, undertaken through the mediation of the 
British government, were broken off, almost in an 
irreparable manner, by the rejection of the Treaty 
with which S r - Garcia returned from Rio de Janeiro, 
where he had been sent on a mission by the Presi- 
dent. These circumstances could not fail to be de- 



16 



cisive of the fate of an administration, which had 
hitherto boasted of being able to overcome all the 
obstacles opposed to it ; but which, many persons 
thought, had been driven beyond its usual intrench- 
ments, from the moment it was unable to negotiate 
a peace with Brazil, so as to be able to send forward 
the remaining disposable troops against the Provinces 
which refused obedience to its mandates. 

Policy, most assuredly, must have rendered it ap- 
parent that the cabinet of Brazil, under circum- 
stances as above described, would feel less inclined 
to come to an understanding that might lead to a 
settlement of our ancient differences. It was im- 
possible for it not to calculate on the weakness of a 
Republic, distracted by contending parties. The 
friends of the government themselves no longer dis- 
guised their sentiments, and very frankly avowed 
that it was impossible to carry on the war, or make 
peace. Probably, these gloomy prognostics reached 
Brazil, thure being numbers in Buenos Ayres ac- 
quainted with them. It is, indeed, a fact, that the 
peace could not have been concluded on the terms of 
the Treaty, negotiated and signed by our minister, 
sent to Rio de Janeiro ; but, it is also evident, that 
harmony in the State was the first element required 
to render the public cause respectable, and place us 
in a situation to obtain honourable conditions. 

In this state of things, the President sent in his 
resignation to the Congress, in which he stated that 
he had been unable to conclude a peace with Brazil, 
and in consequence of difficulties, which it was out 
of his power to overcome, he saw himself compelled 
to return to the Congress the post that had been 



17 

confided him. This resignation was accompanied by 
all the usual forms and solemnities, the details of 
which exist among the official papers of the day. 
The Congress proceeded to accept the proffered resig- 
nation, afterwards electing a provisional President, 
in the person of S r - Lopez ; and, as the injudici- 
ous measure of suppressing the Province of Buenos 
Ayres, which occurred in February, 1826, was then 
plainly felt, it was ordained by law that the Presi- 
dent should convene new representatives, and that, 
in case their votes were for the restoration, that 
the Province should then constitute itself on the 
old footing and under the same institutions, as 
before. 

The elections being concluded, the new repre- 
sentatives declared that it was the will of the Pro- 
vince to resume the ancient form. In consequence 
whereof, the people organized their government and 
appointed S r - Dorrego to the head of the adminis- 
tration. This orderly and legal proceeding was fol- 
lowed by the withdrawal of S r - Lopez and the Con- 
gress, in a tranquil and satisfactory manner. 

It is here proper to observe, that the new ad- 
ministration was about to bear the whole weight of 
the difficulties which pressed so heavily on the late 
Presidency, at the period of its close ; and was be- 
sides called upon to adopt another policy, in order 
to dispel distrust and remove prejudices. It did not 
suffice that the further effusion of blood should be 
spared, within the limits of the Republic ; it became 
imperiously urgent to employ all the means remain- 
ing to make head against an external enemy. On 
them devolved the arduous task of healing the 



18 

wounds, caused by domestic disunion ; of changing 
a scene of devastation and mourning into one of con- 
fidence and peace ; of collecting from the provinces 
the aids and cooperation, required by the presence 
of an imposing enemy, already within our territory 
and persisting in a contest that seemingly had no 
definite period, and, finally, the new administration 
had to resort to prompt and energetic measures, in 
order that every thing might wear the appearance 
of action and power, so as to shew that the Republic 
had not entirely ceased to exist. For the attain- 
ment of all these objects, of such vital importance to 
the community, it became necessary to act with 
magnanimity and prudence ; nor were sacrifices to 
be spared. If there are cases in which policy would 
suggest the expediency of temporizing, clearly it was 
the one in which the country was, at that period, 
placed ; particularly, as the opposition in the Con- 
gress, which had now been called upon to direct the 
helm of State, had uniformly sustained this principle 
and could not deviate from it, without incurring the 
charge of gross and flagrant inconsistency.* 

Cordova held an evident ascendancy over the 
other federated Provinces, and, before the with- 
drawal of the President was known there, had sent 
off a Commissioner, in order to make some amicable 
arrangement. On this occasion, it was, that the 
Convention, which forms the chief topic of the fear- 



* In one of the last sittings, of the Congress, S,-. Gomez called S r . Dor - 
rego " the illustrious chief of the Opposition." " Every thing do we 
yield up," said the same deputy, in a tone somewhat compunctive, 
'" principles, policy— every thing, do we yield up." 



19 

ful charge alluded to, was carried into effect. In 
times of parties and factions, it is not indeed un- 
frequent to see both innocence and merit trampled 
upon ; every thing being then beheld through the 
deceptive prism of the passions. As M. Chateau- 
briand very justly remarks, in times like these, 
there are two weights and two measures for the 
same action. The transforming, or disfiguration of 
facts, is a trifling sacrifice to men who are determined 
to be unjust. It would, in fact, seem to have been 
a peculiar privilege, reserved for our worthy Jour- 
nalists, to shock every kind of decency ; but, when 
they take upon themselves to publish documents, 
which cannot fail to excite veneration and respect, 
seemingly as if people could neither read, nor com- 
prehend, they even insult the most obtuse under- 
standing, by deducing from them conclusions dia- 
metrically opposed to their evident intent and 
meaning. This is the poetical — the sublime of im- 
pudence ! No comparison can be found for so 
flagrant an act of folly ! To level against me the 
charge of being a traitor, and that from the contents 
of documents which they themselves usher to the 
world, through the medium of their own ready 
columns, must strike every one with surprise ! 

This Convention, or rather " Stipulations," for 
such was the title given to it, in order to save the 
credit of the Republic, was published at Buenos 
Ayres, on the 28th of November, 1827, in the Sup- 
plement to the 4th Number and Vlth Book of the 
Official Register, and subsequently in all the papers 
of the day. It is also inserted at the end of the 
present Exposition, under the head of the letter A. 



20 



The introduction sets forth " that a wish to secure 
the liberties and rights of the people, as well as to 
establish the internal tranquillity of the Republic, on 
a solid basis, by facilitating all the means, conducive 
to the establishment of mutual cordiality and confi- 
dence between them, had determined both parties to 
approach each other, for the purpose of treating on 
all the points which their common interest and that 
of the State, in general, required/' 

By Article 1, the two Provinces renew their ancient 
bonds of confraternity ; they pledge to sustain each 
others rights and institutions, and start from u the 
cardinal point,' ' (such, in fact, do they call it) and 
under a full conviction, " of the necessity of consti- 
tuting themselves into a nation and cooperating in 
the war against Brazil." 

Conformably to Article 2, the Province of Buenos 
Ayres engages to contribute to the early meeting of 
the Convention, which the Congress, at the time of 
closing, recommended to be held for the purpose of 
settling the General Affairs of the country," and 
although expressing an opinion on the choice of the 
place, best suited for the meeting, it proceeds with a 
modesty which guards against jealousies and obviates 
difficulties. 

Article 3 evinces a national and elevated spirit, 
accompanied by an anxiety to shorten the dangers 
of the acephalous state in which the Republic was 
placed, by fixing the day on which the Representa- 
tives of the people were to assemble. 

The 4th Article is still more expressive of this 
patriotic wish ; and it was further added that if, on 
the arrival of the day fixed upon, the other Provinces 



21 



had not sent forward their Delegates to the National 
Convention, the two governments engaged to des- 
patch their own, in order in this manner to shew 
their efficacious wishes to carry the measure into 
effect, as well as to serve as an example to the 
rest." 

The 5th Article, under the title of Instructions, 
points out the objects for which the meeting was to 
be held ; objects, imperiously required by the safety 
and dignity of the State; such as to appoint a 
" National Executive," which did not exist, " for 
the purposes of peace and war, as well as foreign 
relations, " and also to authorize and guarantee the 
general expences. The purport of this clause also 
rendered a just tribute of respect to the opinion, pre- 
viously expressed respecting the most eligible form 
of government;* and, following the example of the 
enlightened men who gave a truly political ex- 
istence and a Constitution to the United States, it 
allotted to that meeting the charge of preparing the 
ground work for the Constituent Congress, which 
was afterwards to assemble ; as well as to trace out 
for it its functions and duties, in order to obviate the 
dangers of absolute power and the want of responsi- 
bility, the very rock on which the three Argentine 
Congresses, successively seeking to frame a Consti- 



* The Congress consulted the Provinces respecting the hases on which 
the Constitution, which it was about to enact for thern, was to be 
founded ; and although the great majority were in favour of Federation, 
the Congress nevertheless established it under the form of Unity. On 
this account, when the new code was presented to the Provinces, for then 
sanction, it was rejected by the same great majority. 



22 



tution for us, without due premeditation, actually 
split. 

According to the 5th Article, the Province of 
Cordova offered to delegate to the government of 
Buenos Ayres, the investiture of the " General Ex- 
ecutive/' for all the purposes of peace and war, as 
well as external relations ; an honour which, most 
assuredly, could not be offensive to the Argentines, 
and which, after what had happened, was a proof of 
confidence which few only had reason to expect. 

Article 7 presents the most complete triumph of 
reason over civil discord. Far from continuing the 
dispute, or wasting the blood of the people in tear- 
ing each other to pieces, merely to indulge in the 
pursuits of vengeance, the Province of Cordova, as 
head of the Provincial League, binds herself to fur- 
nish a regiment, " in order to be employed in the 
exigencies of the war with Brazil. " This act, of 
itself, was sufficient to save the Republic. The re- 
mainder of this Article and the others, as far as No. 
11, contain no more than economical details, relat- 
ing to the manner in which this reinforcement was 
to be carried into effect ; although it ought to be 
further remarked that, pursuant to Article 10, Cor- 
dova renews her pledge of concurrence and coopera- 
tion, by offering " an additional contingent of men," 
whenever it should be required ; in consequence of 
which she actually sent forward one thousand two 
hundred men to the ranks of our army, at that 
time engaged in the campaign. It is indeed true 
that the expences, required to move this force, were 
stipulated to be on account of the government of 
Buenos Ayres, and so in fact they were, and, as set 



23 



forth in Article 9, payable out of the Expences des- 
tined for the exigencies of the war ; but, let me here 
ask, when was this not the case ? On all similar 
occasions, who is it that has paid for the expences 
of recruiting ? Were not large sums of money ex- 
pended on the forces organized at Salta, in the year 
1825, under General Arenales ? Were not the very 
troops, employed in the civil wars of 1826 and the 
beginning of 1827, paid by Buenos Ayres, and even 
allowed double pay ? Who is there ignorant of the 
fact that, for a considerable time and during the ad- 
ministration of S r - Rivadavia, an allowance of four 
thousand dollars per month was furnished to Santa 
Fe ? Look to the Treaty of peace, concluded be- 
tween Buenos Ayres, Santa Fe, Entre Rios and Cor 
rientes, on the 25th of January, 1822, found in the 
Official Register, No. 5, Bookii, corresponding to the 
14th of November, in that year, which is not in- 
serted here, in order not to swell the pages of the 
present Exposition. Let these precedents be re- 
ferred to, and it will then be seen whether the paral- 
lel is not in favour of the Convention in question.* 

The Convention closed with Articles 12 and 13. 
The first of them is confined to the expression, on 
the part of the Province of Buenos Ayres, of what 
every one must be well aware she was ready to per- 
form ; viz. noble efforts to send forward, from with- 



* Refering to this very Treaty of Santa Fe, the Pampero, in No. 68, 
inadvertently condemns his own friends. "A capitulation was made 
(meaning with the Provincials of Santa F£) and, in short, a shameful 
tribute covered us with opprobrium." Such are the very words of this 
rasb and inconsiderate advocate of perpetual war between the Provinces ! 



24 



in her own district, recruits to the army. The other 
embraces the usual forms for the exchange and rati- 
fication of the instrument. 

It will be readily acknowledged, that a public act 
ought necessarily to be judged, either according to 
its object, or its results. The object of the Conven- 
tion, above mentioned, was evidently the pacification 
and harmony of the Provinces ; and undertaken with 
a view to put an end to the effusion of blood, and 
establish a general authority, capable of conducting 
the affairs of the Republic. This last expedient was 
in fact urgently necessary, in order to renew the 
negotiations for peace 5 and it must at the same 
time be borne in mind that, as the Executive near 
whom the Honourable Lord Ponsonby was accredit- 
ed, had, in the interval, disappeared, all diplomatic 
communication with the mediating minister had thus 
consequently ceased. The immediate results were, 
the termination of internal dissensions; the coopera- 
tion of the Provinces in the defence of the State, 
instead of expending their resources in mutually de- 
bilitating each other ; a reinforcement of one thou- 
sand two hundred men, which Cordova sent forward 
to our army of the line, added to the moral power, 
arising out of this example ; independent of the 
honour redounding to the Province of Buenos Ayres, 
from the authority thereby conferred upon her to 
direct the Nation. In conclusion, it may be added, 
that during the fifteen months which the adminis- 
tration, so basely assailed, lasted, not a single drop 
of blood was spilled within the territory of the State ; 
the war against our aggressors was honourably sus- 
tained, whilst a glorious peace was besides secured. 



25 

These are facts which cannot, for a single moment, 
be disguised. 

Next followed the Conventions with Santa Fe, 
Entre-Rios and Corrientes, which I also had the 
honour to promote ; all invariably directed to the 
same great object and attended with similar results. 
At this very time, as it were, from a patriotic im- 
pulse and a strong conviction of propriety, the re- 
maining provinces, with the exception only of two, 
the names of which it may perhaps be prudent, for 
the present, to conceal, provisionally formed a centre 
of power, by delegating their respective authorities 
to the government of Buenos Ayres. 

Such, in its several operations, was the Conven- 
tion of the 21st of September, 1827- Where then is 
that perfidy, which the Tiempo and Pampero allege 
to have presided at its formation, to be found ? Who 
can therein trace that humiliation — that barter of 
the Province, which those flippant detracters so sud- 
denly conjured up in their own brains ! Could human 
reason ever have prostituted itself so far as to con- 
demn an act of this kind ? If the construction of 
such an instrument, as the one above described, is to 
be held as a crime, and even a crime of State, what 
is the award to be given to loyalty, beneficence and 
zeal ? It would really seem that, for a man to be 
held as the friend and faithful servant of his country, 
no less a sacrifice was necessary than to contend 
against the Provinces, with fire and sword, and 
spread the flame of civil discord to the furthest ex- 
tremes of the Republic ! What, is every one who 
does not feel disposed to light up the torch of civil 
war, or arm himself with a dagger, to be pronounced 



26 



an outcast, a criminal, or a coward I The Province 
of Buenos Ayres, as seen from the particulars just 
exhibited, yields up nothing ; and yet, it is asserted, 
that she is subjected to humiliations! She loses 
nothing ; but still, we are told, that she is injured. 
She receives into her arms another Province, stand- 
ing on an equal footing with herself and coming in 
search of her, and, nevertheless, it is said, that she 
degrades herself! She acquires a character, of which 
she stood in need, and one which, placing her at the 
head of the State, enables her to direct the war and 
empowers her to make peace, as well as to treat with 
foreign powers ; and yet, it is concluded, that she 
has been betrayed! She acquires a considerable and 
timely accession of strength, incorporated with her 
own troops, nevertheless, we have to endure the as- 
sertion that she has been sold and bartered ! Can 
this be a reality ! Is it possible to imagine that men 
can be found so crooked in their ideas and so falla- 
cious in their views, as to reason in this manner ! 

There being no society, on earth, in which blood 
and discord form the principal elements and the 
leading basis of a national policy, as the Tiempo and 
the Pampero would gladly wish, it reasonably may 
be concluded that if internal peace, in itself, is to be 
considered as a benefit, this benefit must be materi- 
ally enhanced, when it besides produces other public 
advantages. Under the circumstances in which the 
negotiation was concluded, as has already been 
pointed out, many difficulties occurred, which could 
not be overcome without a most enlightened pa- 
triotism, as well as a spirit of justice, directed by 
the most prudent moderation; for, to plunge a nation 



27 

into the abyss of war and civil commotions, a few 
rash, inconsiderate and ambitious men are alone 
wanted ; but, in order to bring one safely out of a 
deadly conflict, by conciliating, on the one hand, 
and giving satisfaction, on the other, requires more 
than the ordinary exertion of talents and virtues. 
This is even a precept of Tacitus, who admonishes 
us that the origin of civil wars may be traced to 
chance, or rashness ; but, that, to put an end to such 
calamities, is the work of wisdom and foresight.* 
Ere this, probably, the Authors of the new civil war, 
caused by the military sedition of the 1st of last 
December, feel the whole weight of this profound 
and timely observation ! 

But, if in the body of the Convention, we trace 
nothing of those overt acts of treason, which our 
doughty Journalists are so ready to blazon forth, let 
us see whether, in the Secret and Additional Articles, 
any thing of the kind is to be found. It is indeed 
against this part of the Convention that the whole of 
their spleen seems directed ; and, as if the special 
qualification of " Private," afforded our playful 
politicians a fair and triumphant opportunity of ap- 
pealing to the public, they avail themselves of it, in 
order to indulge in imprecations, which can answer 
no other end than to exhibit more clearly the bad 
faith by which they are themselves actuated. 

Considerable stress must, however, be laid upon 
one circumstance, which became essential to the 
Convention of the 21st of September, and this is, that 

* Initio, bellorum civilium fortunes permittenda ; fines y aut€m, consiUii* H 
ratione perfici. 



28 



the minister from Cordova, as a preliminary step, 
required that the flight, which it was thought the 
members of the previous administration would at- 
tempt, should be prevented, as well as that of a few 
others who had exercised some influence over their 
proceedings. This demand was made, in terms so 
peremptory, even before the conferences commenced, 
that the Cordova minister, in a note of the 30th of 
August, declared, " that the disappearance of a single 
one of them, would determine him to ask for his 
passport, as in that case he should consider that 
all his labours would be fruitless, and every thing 
useless that it might be deemed expedient to ar- 
range." 

The plea, of which he availed himself, was, that 
his Province had to call them to account, in their 
character of public functionaries, and as having been 
the chief promoters of the civil war ; at the same 
time observing, " that the profound indignation 
of the offended people ; public justice ; the neces- 
sity of rendering the responsibility of those who 
exercise power, effective ; as well as of freeing the 
country from that demoralization and bad example 
of seeing men, whom society viewed in the light of 
criminals, descend from the seat of office, without 
any account being demanded of them," rendered 
this measure indispensably necessary. Vide his note, 
found in the Appendix, under the letter B. 

No requisition was here made for arrests, banish- 
ments, executions, or even the delivery up of per- 
sons. A Province, and one of importance, which it 
was an object of great moment to conciliate, de- 
manded satisfaction for injuries of great magnitude. 



29 



The complaint was instituted by no less than one 
member of the State against men, at that time in 
the class of private individuals, who had adminis- 
tered the affairs of the Nation, and with them 
those of the very Province itself. The demand did 
not go beyond an assurance that these men should 
be forthcoming, in order to answer the charges which 
might be brought against them ; an act, in itself, 
perfectly legal, and Buenos Ayres, in whose juris- 
diction they were residing, was required to see that 
they did not, by flight, evade the investigation that 
awaited them. 

The government of Buenos Ayres was far from 
thinking that the persons alluded to, had any in- 
tention of absenting themselves. It indeed knew 
well that their views were quite the reverse, and 
strenuously endeavoured to convince the Cordova 
representative of the fact ; but, without success, as 
he persisted, in the most positive manner and by 
virtue of his instructions, on the necessity of guaran- 
teeing their permanency within the reach of our 
laws, if it was wished to inspire confidence and pro- 
ceed to a satisfactory arrangement. I may perhaps 
be allowed to copy, in this place, the conditions re- 
quired, in the very words in which they were proposed, 
in order that they may be the better understood and 
borne in mind, as well as to afford an opportunity of 
comparing them with the answer of the minister of 
Buenos Ayres; with the additional Articles, breathing 
the same spirit and which were afterwards agreed 
upon, and, lastly, with the strange and distorted in- 
terpretation which our dreamers of treason sought 
to put upon those same Additional Articles. 



30 

The minister of Cordova required, 1st, " The 
security and permanency in the country of every 
person, belonging to the government which had 
ceased, previous to the 3rd of July, (meaning S r - Ri- 
vadavia and his ministers) . 2ndly, The like security 
as regarded the General of the army (Don Carlos 
Alvear) and of Don Valentin Gomez. 3rdly, The 
collection together of all important documents and 
an exact statement of all the branches of the go- 
vernment, in statu quo, in order to he submitted to 
the ensuing Congress. 4thly, An express agree- 
ment, duly drawn up, for the objects contained in 
the present requisition." 

Another administration, less liberal, would, at that 
time, most probably, have considered itself, not only 
justified in placing the persons pointed out at 
the disposal of the police ; but also authorized, in 
order to guarantee the agreement about to be en- 
tered into for the production of the parties, when 
called upon for trial, to demand the corresponding 
securities. For less motives, and merely through 
the report of a general, or the wording of intercepted 
letters, during the preceding administration, we had 
seen distinguished persons confined to the city, 
placed under the surveillance of the police, and held 
to bail, and even some banished; the government, on 
that occasion, availing itself of powers which, it al- 
leged, the state of the war gave to it. The authori- 
ties, nevertheless, who negotiated the Convention of 
September, abstained from every measure that could 
in the least affect individuals. The very government, 
in fact, constituted itself their security, and the min- 
ister of Buenos Ayres answered in the terms which 



31 



appear from his official note of the 31st of August, 
found in the Appendix, under the letter C. 

In this document will be seen a clause, congenial 
to the feelings of a minister of a free country, and 
which cannot fail to meet with the estimation of all 
enlightened men, as well as being productive of good 
example. The minister of Buenos Ayres, after stating 
that the government was convinced of the justice of 
rendering administrative responsibility effective, ob- 
serves that, " combining the respect due to the prin- 
ciples, by which the government is actuated and 
bound, with that deference to which the requisition 
of Cordova is entitled ; together with the observance 
of the law regarding individual security, which is a 
sacred and majestic basis of all the rights and a com- 
pendium of that freedom to which we aspire, it had 
been agreed that a pledge should be given to watch 
over the persons pointed out, and that permission 
should not be granted to them to quit the country." 
This, in fact, was the whole restriction that possibly 
could operate against the individuals in question, 
and did not go beyond an obligation, in case they 
should attempt to absent themselves, to make report 
thereof to the Provincial Legislature, in order that 
the latter might take into consideration and determine 
on the envoys' requisition ; that is to say, respecting 
the detention of their persons. It would scarcely be 
credited that this is the express letter and the whole 
tenour of this despatch ! Scarcely can it be believed, 
that this venerable proof of devotion and adherence 
to principles, could, by a spirit of faction, ever be 
construed into a crime and denounced as an act of 
perfidy — an atrocious barter of the country ! Reader ! 



32 



peruse the document yourself, and see, with your 
own eyes, whether the contents warrant any such 
interpretation. 

The note concludes by observing, " that they were 
to be placed at the disposal of the Convention, or 
Congress, that might assemble, as soon as its au- 
thority was acknowledged by the Province of Buenos 
Ayres, and it had been made known to the govern- 
ment that their trial had been determined upon ;" 
whilst, in the mean while, the documents, on which 
the charges could be founded, were to be collected. 

On this subject, the Tiempo of the 3rd of January, 
No. 198, makes an observation palpably false ; and 
it is the first that occurs to him, viz. that Minister 
Moreno interprets the communication of the one 
from Cordova, and gives greater extent to his un- 
heard-of requisition. "The Buenos Ayres Minister," 
he adds, " not only submits to the humiliation of 
servilely and meanly consenting to the infamous 
things, proposed to him ; but, also takes upon him- 
self to draw aside the whole veil of the iniquitous 
deed, as well as to gratify, in the most complete 
manner, the wishes of the envoy and his uncle (mean- 
ing the governor of Cordova.) But," exclaims he, 
u could it have been possible to give to this pro- 
ceeding more decisive steps, than those which result 
from the preceding documents ? Could meanness, 
servility, humiliation, infamy, and the prostitution of 
the government of Buenos Ayres, ever have reached 
a higher pitch V 1 

Yet, what is it, of a substantial form, that appears 
amidst this cloud of invectives ? The personal safety 
of no one was invaded; no one plunged into prison — 



33 



no one banished ; nor have we yet heard that any 
one was shot, without a hearing, or by virtue of a 
general's simple order ! The government did no 
more than give an assurance that, if the individuals 
in question sought to absent themselves from the 
country, it would recur to the Legislative Body, so 
as to afford the latter an opportunity of prescribing 
such measures respecting the envoy's requisition, as 
should seem expedient ; that is, at most, to place 
them at the disposal of the National Legislature, on 
two clear and natural conditions ; the first of which 
was, that the authority of that same Legislature 
should have been acknowledged in Buenos Ayres ; 
and, the second, that the said Legislative Body had 
decreed their trial. In the mean while, it was agreed 
upon to prevent their clandestine flight, in the man- 
ner, usual on such occasions, by means of the general 
police. Such a surveillance, as this, was neither op- 
pressive, nor groundless. The best proof of the 
mildness of the measure, is, that the parties them- 
selves never perceived it ; and that it has been ne- 
cessary for our loud-tongued brawlers to obtain 
possession of the secret archives of the government, 
in order to know that it ever existed, even after the 
lapse of a year ! 

What ! does the thoughtless and imperious writer 
wish to contend that the government of Buenos 
Ayres ought to have sent away the Cordova envoy, 
and deprived the country of the incalculable ad- 
vantages which it gained by the September Conven- 
tion, including the peace and harmony of the Pro- 
vinces ? Such a pretension, as this, would be really 
" unheard of;" in like manner as it is infamous and 

E 



34 



immoral to argue that men who have held office 
should not appear before a national tribunal, when 
there is some one to cite them thither. What is the 
meaning of this horror of a trial, which, one would 
think, their own honour impelled them to demand ? 
Would it have been more just and equitable to have 
conducted them to prison; to have condemned them, 
without a hearing — without the legal forms — with- 
out a sentence ; nay, still more, to shoot them, on a 
mere military order f The Tiempo may perhaps be 
struck dumb at this question ! The manes of S r - Dor- 
rego, who signed that very same Convention with 
the Provinces, as well as the Treaty of Peace with 
Brazil, and who was afterwards atrociously assassin- 
ated by his enemies,* without a trial, or even a hear- 
ing, notwithstanding the character of Governor of 
Buenos Ayres, with which he was invested, as well 
as that of the General Executive — the manes of this 
illustrious man, I repeat, can furnish the best 
answer. 

No ulterior steps were adopted ; nor were the 
meanness and prostitution, so furiously complained 
of, attended with any further consequences. The 
Additional Articles, which will be found in the Ap- 
pendix, under the letter D, add nothing to the agree- 
ment, comprehended and explained in the note of 
the 31st of August. To remove public functionaries, 
notoriously prejudicial to the tranquillity of the 
Provinces, and to see that the weight of public 
aifairs rested on men who, by their sentiments and 

* On the 13th of December, 1828, at a place called Navarro. Vide par- 
ticulars at the end. 



35 



conduct, could inspire confidence, as well as to dis- 
pel not only from the Province of Cordova, but also 
the rest of the ancient Union, that is to say, from 
the whole of the Republic, the apprehensions of 
being again involved in the horrors of a civil war, 
ought ever to be the duty of the supreme Authority, 
as well as its most sacred obligation. This, most 
assuredly, is to sustain the honour of all ; and, con- 
sequently, the true dignity, elevation and good 
name of Buenos Ayres. Even without the special 
reasons which presented themselves for acting with 
all this prudence, no one can dispute that, among the 
common attributes of a government, is the one of 
confering appointments on persons deserving of its 
confidence, and if there was then any thing to blame, 
it is, that notwithstanding this latitude, all the men 
belonging to the previous administration, and among 
them well known enemies of the government, were 
retained, without any exception of places. Readily 
will it be believed that the elevated accusers, who 
guide the pen of the Tiempo, did not lose a single 
moment, after the 1st of December, in giving their 
conge to all the persons whom they had reason to 
think were not devoted to them. 

On the other hand, there can be no injustice in 
listening to a requisition; or, in ordering a summary 
proceeding to be instituted against a General* who, 
without being ill, or wounded, had withdrawn from 
the army, actively engaged in the campaign, and 
against whom accusations were preferred by its 



* This General had been removed by S r - Lopez, who appointed General 
La Yalleja in his stead. 



36 

officers. There is no servility in promising to the 
Republic to do that which the military laws, disci- 
pline, the duty of the government, and the reputation 
of Buenos Ayres required should have been done, 
before. It is to be supposed that there are no men, 
so distinguished, as the Tiempo himself asserts, as to 
be exempt from the operation of the laws ; where 
then are we to find them superior to those laws ; or, 
how is it we are to understand that treason has 
been committed against the State, by a determination 
to try and judge them ? 

No greater absurdity possibly could be uttered, 
than to pronounce any proceeding against persons 
of the class alluded to, as a criminal offence against 
the State. Avowals of this kind, evidently shew the 
finger of a faction, alone wishing to figure in all 
public affairs. They have said with Louis XIV — 
" we are the State" — (L'Etat cest moi) — whilst, 
seemingly, they forget that such an avowal, as this, 
followed up by corresponding conduct, was not par- 
doned in a monarch, seated on the absolute throne 
of his ancestors \ how, therefore, could they expect 
that it would be tolerated in the subjects of a free 
country ? Clearly, in the Additional Articles, above 
referred to, there was no question of any thing that 
could affect the rights of the Province, or the State -, 
their object was not to dismember the territory ; to 
impose any new burden upon it ; to deprive it of its 
sovereignty, or endanger its privileges. The whole 
was merely an administrative matter. 

The Tiempo then proceeds, and with no dimin- 
ished share of impertinence, to examine whether the 
Provincial House of Representatives granted special 



37 

powers to ratify the Articles above enumerated, and, 
at the same time, goes so far as to say that, "judg- 
ing from the line of conduct which the majority con- 
stantly observed, the House would not have hesi- 
tated to authorize the government to proceed to the 
ratification, if the affair had been submitted to their 
cognizance \" adding, "that it is, however, probable 
that the Executive abstained from doing so, through 
a dread of a few deputies, belonging to the minority, 
who always sustained, although weakly, the rights of 
the people." But what dread could a minority, of 
the class above described, have excited ? When the 
government did not inform the Legislature of the 
existence of the Articles, even when it had reason to 
rely on their approbation, it ought to be inferred that 
it was not its intention to execute them. If the 
House did not afford their sanction, clearly, they 
could not be legally carried into execution. Where 
then, is that personal injury done to any one, of 
which we hear such loud complaints ? Were the 
parties at any time molested ? No one ever heard 
that they were. If, therefore, any one has reason to 
complain, it is the Province of Cordova 5 but, it cau 
scarcely regard the Tiempo to see her satisfied, at 
the expence of the inconvenience it might cause to 
his " distinguished personages." 

At length, we have come to that part of the sub- 
ject, when it is necessary to look into the causes of 
these accusations. The Tiempo thinks that the man 
who concluded that Convention ; whose public life 
is marked by numerous steps, proving him to have 
no love whatsoever for the land which gave him 
birth, and whose name has invariably figured in all 



38 



those foreign intrigues which have for their object 
the degradation of the country, as he evinced when 
he alone, in the whole of the Argentine Republic, 
enthusiastically decided in favour of a certain pre- 
liminary Convention of Peace with the Emperor of 
Brazil (the one negotiated by S r - Garcia) ; a man of 
this kind, he proceeds, " ought not to be our minis- 
ter at any foreign court whatsoever, and possibly 
less in England, than any where else." 

As regards the public life of this man, it will suffice 
to say, that, previous to the revolution, he served his 
country, in several situations, and received honour- 
able testimonials of his conduct from the superior 
authorities. Since that memorable event, and in 
times the most perilous, he had, without ever once 
vacillating, been placed under the standard of his 
country's freedom and independence, on which, from 
the year 1810, the name of his family is inscribed. 

In 1817, his opinions and writings, in defending 
the Oriental Province against a Portuguese invasion, 
when some persons were encouraging it through per- 
fidy, and others were applauding it through error, 
or debility, brought upon him a persecution under 
the ominous government of Pueyrredon, who, at that 
time, presided over our country. 

At the close of 1821, on his return from the United 
States, where he resided five years, he was named 
by the City of Buenos Ayres to the Provincial 
Junta, when his conduct met with the approbation 
of his fellow citizens, and he was returned by the 
same city to all the successive Legislatures, until 
the Province was suppressed, towards the commence- 
ment of 1826. 



39 



The tribune of the Legislature of Buenos Ayres and 
that of the General Constituent Congress, of which 
he was also a member, are witnesses of his principles. 
His speeches, preserved on the Journals of both 
Houses, and also separately published, evince his zeal 
and efforts in support of freedom and the laws. 

In 1825, the government of General Las Heras 
had selected him as Envoy to the American Congress 
of Panama, whither he did not go, in consequence of 
the administration and policy of the country soon 
afterwards changing. 

In April, 1826, he was named by President Riva- 
davia in the character of Minister Plenipotentiary to 
the United States, as may be seen from the National 
Register of that month, which appointment he re- 
fused to accept. 

In August, 1827, he joined the ministry, when 
he promoted the pacification of the Provinces and re- 
established the negotiations for peace with Brazil, 
by tracing the plan on which it was concluded, a year 
afterwards ; which plan, according to the report, 
forwarded by our own Charge* d' Affaires in London, 
was, by Lord Dudley, at that time H. B. M. minister 
for Foreign Affairs, pronounced to be the most ju- 
dicious that had hitherto been presented. 

Finally, on his departure from Buenos Ayres, on 
the 13th of November, 1828, a paper,* more impar- 
tial than the Ttempo, spoke of him thus ; (i To-day 
our fellow countryman, D r - Manuel Moreno, embarks 
for England, in the Nocton packet, in the character 



* The Diario Literario y Politico of Buenos Ayres, of the 13th of Nov, 
1828, No. 61. 



40 



of Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipoten- 
tiary of the Argentine Republic, near H. B. M. The 
important services which he has rendered to his 
country, justify the judgment which the government 
has had in this selection. This distinguished citizen 
served, as a clerk, in the Secretary's office of the 
government, even before our glorious revolution. 
After that event, in the first Legation that left here 
for that same court, to which he is now proceeding, 
he went in the character of Secretary (in 1811) 
jointly with S r - D n - Thomas Guido, at present minis- 
ter of the government and foreign relations. On 
returning to his native land, he discharged, for a 
long period, the duties of principal clerk in the office 
of the Secretary of the Government. He was a 
deputy for this Province in our Legislature, and a 
representative of the Oriental Province in the general 
constituent Congress. Finally, he was Secretary of 
the Government and foreign affairs, under the 
present administration. In the whole of these situ- 
ations, he evinced the purest patriotism, and the 
talents with which he acquitted himself, on all oc- 
casions, have not only done him much honour, but 
also secured to him the esteem of the whole of his 
fellow-citizens. We have not been able to refrain 
from performing this duty mposed upon us by 
justice. We wish him a prosperous voyage and 
every kind of success, in the discharge of the import- 
ant commission again confided to him. We have 
indeed the best grounds for hoping that his efforts, 
on behalf of his country, will not be fruitless.* The 
superior qualifications by which S r - Moreno is dis- 
tinguished, and who is not only duly esteemed by all 



41 



good patriots, but has also met with particular con- 
sideration from the British authorities, resident in 
our country, indeed afford us room to expect the 
best results from his mission." 

As regards his having always figured in the 
foreign intrigues, which had for object the degrada- 
tion of the country ; how is it, that the Tiempo does 
not state what kind of intrigues these were ? Where 
is it they are to be traced ? Who promoted them ? 
This, however, he says, I proved, when I was the 
only one in the whole of the Republic, who enthusi- 
astically decided in favour of S r - Garcia' s Convention. 
But, in the first place, it is not proved that this was 
an act of treason, or a foreign intrigue, since no at- 
tempt was ever made to try the minister by whom 
the negotiation was conducted. In the second, I had 
nothing whatever to do with this affair ; my opinion 
respecting its merit, as an individual and a mem- 
ber of the Congress, was free, and although it might 
be erroneous, in no way was it censurable. It is, 
moreover, untrue that I approved of the Convention 
in question, and much less could I do so, enthusiasti- 
cally. This puerile and miserable calumny has, in 
fact, over and over again, been belied, and it is so by 
the very Minutes of the Congress. I, in fact, con- 
sidered that Treaty as blameable, as I did the conduct 
of the President, and what I proposed to the Con- 
gress, was, that, before proceeding to any discussion 
upon it, the Executive should be required to render in 
an account of the state of the nation. This was not 
done ; neither was the Treaty discussed. Finally, 
if I had defended the Convention, its spirit would 
have been visible in the subsequent negotiations with 



42 

Brazil, which, two months afterwards, were placed 
under my immediate direction, when, so far from 
this being the case, they took a different course and 
were certainly attended with other results.* 

What, let us also ask, are those foreign intrigues ? 
Peace is made, and, as every one has been obliged 
to confess, made on honourable terms. The patient 
and generous conduct of the British government, 
throughout the whole course of the negotiations, has 
merited the tribute of our gratitude. Are we doomed 
still to hear of that idle and foolish story of the 
British seeking to retain possession of Montevideo, 
for themselves ? At shadows, like these, we ought 
not to startle. Besides, has the mediation of Great 
Britain cost us any thing ; has it been attended with 
the smallest expence to the Oriental Province ? How 
miserably wretched is all this ! A spectre certainly 
pursues these sensitive writers cf Buenos Ayres 
newspapers, and his grim visage appears in every 
line they pen. 

When the foreign resident agents oppose the sub- 
jects of their nation being forced to perform military 
duty in Buenos Ayres, then, it is, that they suppose 
they have caught hold of these intrigues, in real 
earnest. Under date of the 18th of April and in his 
No. 276, the Tiempo very gravely affirms, " that it 
is impossible not to see a great foreign intrigue in 



* A month after I joined the ministry, proposals were received from 
the cabinet of Brazil for an armistice, on condition of the Emperor's 
troops remaining in Montevideo, and rejected. How far distant is this 
from the plan of leaving the whole of the Oriental Province to him, 
which was the one embraced by the Convention in question ! 



43 

the conduct that has been observed, within the last 
few days, by the greatest part of the foreign agents, 
resident in this capital. They appear to have plotted 
together to carry into effect sinister plans, by avail- 
ing themselves of the crisis in which the country, 
at this moment, stands ; and perhaps there is no- 
thing hazarded in the assertion that the British 
Minister in Buenos Ayres (Mr. Parish) has placed 
himself at the head of this iniquitous plot. The con- 
tradictory and daring conduct of the French Consul 
(M. Mandeville) is a proof of what we have just 
stated.' ' As much, if not more, did this same Jour- 
nalist impute to His Excellency, Lord Ponsonby, 
even during the progress of that mediation which 
the Republic itself had solicited. 

If, amidst the overwhelming difficulties and exi- 
gencies into which the country has been plunged, 
any paper suggests the idea of conciliation ; if the 
voice of weeping humanity is heard, allaying the ir- 
ritationfrankling in the public mind, in a rage, does 
the Tiemjjo cry out,* (i a person must be blind not 
to see that, in Buenos Ayres, a great foreign intrigue 
is unfolding itself, and that the man who holds the 
thread of the labyrinth, is an agent who has been 
the most bitter enemy to this country, from the in- 
auspicious moment he arrived on our shores. From 
the dark haunts of our foreign diplomatists," does 
he add, " issued the idea of conciliation," &c. This 
is indeed acting and reasoning, according to the 
Spanish fashion. This is again to be troubled with 
the spectre of treason and intrigue ! Scarcely can 

* In his Number above quoted. 



44 

it be conceived that there are men in existence, who 
venture to treat the political affairs of a nation with 
so much levity and such a want of courtesy and 
truth ; as well as with such a spirit of unceasing re- 
crimination, visible in every page — nay, in every 
line of our Journalist's writings, and levelled against 
both natives and foreigners. He has the peculiar 
art of always beginning his topics by deciding, in- 
stead of discussing the question which he seeks to 
propound, and, of course, after establishing, in his 
own way, that what he wishes to combat is nothing 
else than sheer treason, he proceeds to apply the 
anathemas which, in his judgment, the case may 
require. 

With the same want of moderation, and, if possi- 
ble, with more marked injustice, does a cotemporary 
of the Tiempo express himself, writing in the Pam- 
pero, a paper that seemingly has no other object in 
view than to calumniate and insult, and whose at- 
tacks are more particularly directed against the 
minister who concluded the September Convention. 
From his very first number, the article, headed 
Treason, may be taken as a prelude to that series of 
base productions, in which he encourages a spirit of 
insubordination against the laws. After asserting 
" that he does not agree with the maxim of demand- 
ing an account of public functionaries," that is, when 
they belong to his own party, a maxim which he 
calls " fatal," he proceeds to demand that, through 
the medium of a proscription, and consequently with- 
out a hearing, or being called to an account, punish- 
ment should be awarded against the minister who, 
in the character of a public functionary, signed the 



45 

Convention above alluded to, and without detriment 
to those very professions which his zeal had previ- 
ously urged him to make. This writer, or rather 
this new fury, does not wish that the govern- 
ment, to whom he addresses his counsels, should 
commit the great fault of inspiring horror, with 
hesitation. But, he ought to have called to mind the 
saying of a philosopher, of our own times, who tells 
us that " violent reigns are hot a political existence, 
in like manner as tempests do not form the real 
state of the atmosphere ; that a government may do 
injury, as does the fire of heaven ; but that both do 
no more than pass away and extinguish themselves, 
amidst their own disasters. A government of this 
kind, is a government of the sword — its maxim of 
state, is blood." 

Any one who reads the following lines, will readily 
compassionate the wretched state of the country 
in which they could be penned and published. 
"Treason," exclaims the Pampero, " this is the 
crime that was perpetrated in the Convention of the 
21st of September, 1827 ; this is the crime that de- 
mands punishment, in order that its impunity* may 
remove from us even the possibility of any such 
being again committed. Dorrego ! The unfortunate 
Dorrego no longer exists ! Let us leave him in his 
grave, where he will never again injure his country. 
The other, however, still exists, and he may again 
become a delinquent ; him, therefore, it is, that we 
are to punish, for the present, by our execrations, 
afterwards, by a proscription such as the laws may 
decree." 



* Punition, it is presumed, is here meant, and not impunity. 



46 



But, what laws of a civilized and free country are 
those, which award the penalty of " proscription' ' 
against a public functionary, without trying him, or 
hearing his defence ? i( But/' adds our expounder 
of the laws, " fortunately, there is no necessity for 
instituting legal proceedings; they have already 
been instituted and may be seen in the Articles 
themselves ; there is no need to proceed to trial, for 
this has already been done. No delay ought, therefore, 
to occur in the execution of this punishment (here he 
ought to have added, which I myself, the accuser, 
have pronounced in the name of and duly represent- 
ing my country) by beginning to strip him of the 
public ministry which he is gone to exercise in 
foreign countries. In vain/' proceeds our Journal- 
ist, " would it be to have caused blood to flow, on 
the 9th of December, (and more shall flow, if the 
wretches do not yield) unless heavy blows of au- 
thority are also struck."* 



* This terrorist is a Spaniard, and probably one of those who intro- 
duce themselves into the cause of America, with intentions similar to 
those of Sextus Tarquinius, when he passed over to the other side, with 
a view to ingratiate himself with those whom he was seeking to destroy. 
His Peninsular doctrines of ex officio proscriptions— allegations, marked, 
public and notorious, and heavy blows of authority, very plainly evince 
the feelings of a subject of Ferdinand. His name is too contemptible to 
commit it to paper. The other editor of the Tiempo is a still more des- 
picable imp who, by a decree of S""- Rivadavia himself, was expelled from 
the Secretary's office of the government, in 1823, and banished the 
city, for a robbery of eight thousand dollars, which he committed in the 
above mentioned department, and spent at the gaming table. In con- 
sequence of this, he has, in the eye of the law, been branded with infamy, 
and disabled from being admitted, in a court of law, as a witness ; but, 
as, luckily for him, he is a poet, he availed himself of the poetic licence 



47 

Thus, according to our ranting writer, the dire al- 
ternative of putting a man on his trial, is a crime 
against the nation, and the fundamental laws of the 
State are thereby infringed, although there is some 
one ready to prefer the charge, and demanding that 
justice should be enforced. According to his tenets, 
however, it is more just — more in accordance with 
the laws to proscribe, without a hearing — without 
calling the intended victim to account. It would 
almost seem as if the Pampero's logic was startled 
at absurdities, of this kind, as he very sneakingly 
observes, that he does not blame the administration 
which concluded the September Convention " for 
its opinions, hut for its acts, according to which it is 
necessary to agree that no one is inviolable;" but 
he affects to have forgotten that there was no wish 
to judge its predecessors for opinions, but for acts, 
and acts of such great moment, that they did not 
amount to less than the lighting up of a civil war 
among the provinces. "Hence," does he add, "would 
it follow that by trying without a cause, and without 
any demand from a legitimate party (and certainly 
the Province of Cordova was of this class) the public 



of calling the robbery a misfortune, and being afterwards occasionally 
reproached for the slippery act, as a kind of peace-offering, he published 
a certificate of his having refunded the amount stolen, as if the penalty 
of the thief was confined to restitution, and there was not besides a 
punishment and ignominy awarded both by public opinion and the laws. 
It is confidently stated that, during his banishment, he took poison, but 
not in sufficient quantity to send him to the other world, and, in the 
arms of a worthy friend of his own, he sung the death of Socrates, in the 
very act of drinking his hemlock. In November, 1827, he wounded a 
citizen with a pistol-ball, at a Coffee House ; this also has he converted 
into a poetic gambol, and playfully calls it his "assassination !" 



48 



theatre of the country would be converted into a 
perpetual field of battle between the conquerors and 
the conquered/' The evil, however, would still be 
greater, if, following the Journalist's own doctrine, 
people were condemned and proscribed, without a 
hearing, as he himself wishes should be done. In 
that case, the public theatre would present no other 
than a revolting scene between executioners and 
victims. Further on, he confounds himself by ob- 
serving that the persons claimed, for tried they have 
not been, might be called upon by the national 
power to answer charges preferred against them, 
and then, in whatsoever country they might be, they 
would be obliged to appear, and doubtless they 
would appear, when called upon by the laws." 
Nevertheless, although the experiment is very du- 
bious, let us suppose that this would be the case, 
still, it may be lawful to infer that they would have 
received no injury, in being spared the trouble and 
inconvenience of a fresh voyage. 

This writer not only distinguishes himself by the 
ferocity of his ideas, but also by his malice. In one 
part of his first number, he says, " that Governor 
Bustos had no reason to seek to avenge himself on 
the persons of the late administration, for they had 
never done any thing against him, individually, nor 
even against his government ;" and yet he afterwards 
cries out, with a kind of stupid inconsistency, " that 
they were conveying these men away to be sacri- 
ficed !" What had they done contrary to a Conven- 
tion, which had not even an existence ? Can any 
doubt be entertained of the authenticity of S r - Bustos' 
note; and yet, having it before his own eyes, he dares 



49 

to throw out a hint that the demand, made in it, was 
the result of an intrigue on the part of the Minister 
of Buenos Ayres. 

I must not pass over in silence the attacks which 
the Tiempo and Pampero personally level against 
myself, by accusing me of having received pay, under 
S r - Dorrego's government, " for services which," 
they allege, " I never performed." In the time of 
S r - Rivadavia, I had instituted a demand, and the 
matter was still pending, for pay which the laws of 
the country award to every functiouary who has 
been deprived of his office, without an inquiry, as I 
was, by being sent away to the United States, and 
every one who had been situated as I was, had been 
paid. I alone was an exception, and my demand, 
which had undergone all the legal forms, and its 
justice acknowledged in the several departments, as 
well as by the Attorney General of the State, after a 
delay of eleven years, wanted nothing more than the 
will to pay it. The whole file of the proceedings 
thereon instituted, exists in the Accountant General's 
Office, and to it I refer my calumniators. I, never- 
theless, had the delicacy to deprive myself of the 
fruits of these my services, all the time that my ad- 
ministration lasted, and it was not till after it had 
closed that I urged for payment, which was made by 
six thousand tivo hundred dollars being delivered to 
me, in paper, the whole amount of this great stipend 
which, according to my detracters, deprived the Go- 
vernment of the means of paying the army ! They 
complain that the payment was not made in public 
funds ; but, debts of this nature it has never been 
customary to pay in that manner. Of this fact I 
could quote numerous examples. Besides, those 

G 



50 



who were paid before me, and when I ought equally 
to have been so, if they received paper, did not ex- 
perience any loss, as it was then at par ; and bills of 
the public credit were allowed an advance of a fourth 
part, besides occasionally gaining in the market ; at 
all events, having been paid in time, they enjoyed the 
interest on a capital of which I had been deprived 
for eleven years, In a word, if I had been paid in 
public funds, the value of which is at present 50, I 
should in reality have received 3100 dollars, where- 
as, owing to the loss on the paper in which I was 
paid, rather better than 200 per cent, the amount 
handed to me did not net more than two thousand 
and fifty dollars ! Besides, the littleness of mind 
with which these people calculate the pay of a minis- 
ter of his nation, in a foreign country, as well as the 
envy with which they view his appointment, excites 
more pity than surprise. 

We shall conclude with another solemn testimony 
of the principles which guided my administration, 
independent of many others that might be quoted, 
as well as the note of the 31st of August, of which 
mention has already been made, for I do not disguise 
the truth, my voyage to the United States and 
live years residence 6 there, afforded me the oppor- 
tunity of forming myself in the practice of freedom 
and toleration. In November, 1827, a revolution 
was plotted against the Government, beforehand 
prepared by all kinds of seditious writings. This 
conspiracy is the same as that which a correspondent 
of the Pampero, in his No. 66, recently boasts of, 
and was then felt in Buenos Ayres and agitated the 
city so much, that it was not necessary to wait for 
this last revolution to be convinced of its existence, 



51 



as well as for it no longer to be doubted that it 
was the pusilanimity of one of the conspirators, 
a Spaniard, that was the cause of its not then 
openly breaking out. Nevertheless, the public tran- 
quillity was interrupted by partial disturbances, 
and blood spilled in a Coffee House, by one of the 
leaders of the opposition against the Government. 
In this state of things and amidst the alarm pre- 
vailing among the good citizens, the matter which 
occupied the attention of the Legislature, in a 
sitting held during one of those nights, was, the ne- 
cessity of adopting measures in order to restrain the 
agitators, and more especially the audacious licenti- 
ousness of the press, the freedom of which was, at 
that time, abused, in a manner never before wit- 
nessed. This was indeed urged with great vehe- 
mence by several of the Deputies, who even re- 
proached the government for its supineness and want 
of vigour. From the ministerial bench I, however, 
answered that, as regarded extraordinary powers, in 
order to repress criminal attempts against the con- 
stituted authorities, the Government was far from 
either requiring, or wishing, them, as it considered 
that the laws, in their ordinary course, were suffi- 
cient ; and that, with respect to the abuse of the 
freedom of the press, although it was of the most 
scandalous kind, and particularly offensive to the 
Government, I prided myself in declaring that my 
principles were those of the illustrious Jefferson, the 
column of American freedom, who upheld that 
" truth had nothing to fear from error, as long as 
that truth has equal freedom to explain itself." The 
whole of Buenos Ayrcs heard this solemn declara- 
tion, and besides saw that it was religiously observed, 



52 



as, during the period of my administration, the law 
relating to the freedom of the press was never 
touched; nor was a single proceeding instituted 
against any writer. 

I now feel called upon to close the present Expo- 
sition. The impartial world and my countrymen 
will form their own judgment upon it. I have 
trusted the vindication of my honour to a simple ex- 
amination of facts, and upon them will sentence be 
passed. I might be satisfied with the award of public 
opinion, when the voice of my own conscience tells 
me that it must be favourable ,* but, wishing to meet 
my enemies, face to face, I cite and challenge them, 
before the laws and authorities of my own country, 
to sustain the enormous defamations which they have 
had the hardihood to utter against me. Appealing 
to this national and incorruptible tribunal, I am im- 
pelled by no other interest than that of my good 
name, of which I have hitherto been in quiet pos- 
session. Furthermore, I may be allowed to add that, 
if the competent and legitimate authority, presiding 
over the affairs of my country, should not require 
my services, I shall withdraw into retirement, imi- 
tating the example of the Spartan who had lost his 
election among the number of the Ephori 9 well satis- 
fied that the Republic has so many men of merit and 
virtue, exceeding me ; but, at the same time, justly 
proud of having always discharged the duties con- 
fided to me, with integrity and zeal. 

Manuel Moreno. 

London, June 30, 1829, 



APPENDIX 

AND 

ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS 



55 



APPENDIX. 



(A.) 

Stipulations agreed upon and entered into, between the Go- 
vernment of the Province of Cordova and the Government 
of the Province of Buenos Ayres. 

A wish to secure the liberties and rights of the Provinces, as well as 
to establish the internal peace of the Republic, on a solid basis, by fa- 
cilitating all the means tending therein to perpetuate mutual cordiality 
and confidence, determined the Government of the Province of Cordova 
to despatch its Envoy, Dr« Francisco Ignacio Bustos, to treat with the 
Government of the Province of Buenos Ayres, on all that might be con- 
ducive to this object; and, after presenting his credentials and his 
character being duly acknowledged, the Government of Buenos Ayres, 
for this purpose specially empowered by the Honourable Junta of the 
Representatives of the Province, on its part, authorized its Minister and 
Secretary of Government, D. Manuel Moreno, in order to treat on all 
the points which the common interests of the aforesaid Provinces and 
the State in general required ; and, both having conferred and discussed 
the several matters, they agreed to the following Articles : 

Article 1. Both Provinces being acknowledged equal and as having 
the same rights, they at once contract the most solemn engagement, 
mutually to sustain each other and defend their existing institutions ; 
avowing and establishing, as cardinal points, a determination to consti- 
tute themselves into a nation and cooperate in the war against the 
Emperor of Brazil. 



56 



Art. 2. The Province of Buenos Ayres will proceed, with the least 
possible delay, to name Delegates for the Convention that is to be held 
for the purpose of arranging the general affairs of the country, which, 
according to its vote, ought to meet in Santa Fe, or San Lorenzo, pledg- 
ing that they shall proceed forward as soon as the Government of Cor- 
dova, as being more in contact with the distant Provinces, shall have 
given due notice of the day on which the sittings are to open, and also 
of the place of meeting, according to the majority of the votes of the 
Provinces themselves, to which Buenos Ayres at once submits. 

Art. 3. The two contracting Governments pledge to use all the means 
within their reach, in order that the meeting aforesaid should take 
place, before the 1st of the ensuing November. 

Art. 4. In case the Delegates of the other Provinces, whether in part, 
or in the whole, should not have arrived at the place of meeting, on the 
day fixed upon, the two Governments bind themselves to send forward 
their own Delegates, in order, by this means, to shew their efficacious 
desires to carry into effect the meeting, and as an example to the rest. 

Art. 5. The instructions, under which both Provinces are to send 
forward their Delegates to the Convention, shall be directed to the fol- 
lowing objects, viz. ; to nominate a National Executive, provisionally, 
for all purposes relating to peace and war, as well as external relations ; 
to authorize the same to incur such expences as these matters may re- 
quire, out of the funds which may be obtained on the common credit, 
or such supplies as may hereafter be furnished ; to afford bases as a 
guidance to the Constituent Congress, intended afterwards to assemble, 
within the time designated by the Convention ; to define, with exacti- 
tude and precision, the attributes and duties of the Constituent Congress ; 
and finally, at once to fix the form of the Government which is to be, 
according to the wishes already expressed by the Provinces, the Federal 
one, so as to provide for the security of the country, under existing 
circumstances. 

Art. 6. The Government of Cordova will cooperate, in order to au- 
thorize, on the part of the said Province, the delegation of all the attri- 
butes, necessary to form the National Executive, so as to enable the 
Government of Buenos Ayres to conduct all matters connected with 
peace and war, as well as foreign relations, until the Convention shall 
assemble. 



57 



Art. 7. The Province of Cordova engages to send forward a regiment, 
composed of six hundred men, in order to be employed in the exigencies 
of the war. The appointments of the commanders and officers of this 
force shall be made by the Province, furnishing the contingent. 

Art. 8, In case of vacancy, or removal, whatsoever may be the 
motive, the general under whom this force is serving, shall provisionally 
fill up the vacant places ; but report thereon shall be made to the 
Province, through the medium of that of Buenos Ayres, in order that its 
authorities may name the parties who are to succeed to the vacancies of 
all such commanders and officers. 

Art. 9. The resources requisite to move this force and furnish it 
with a month's pay, previously to its quitting Cordova, so as to meet 
the expence of the outfit, shall be provided by the government of Buenos 
Ayres, out of the funds destined to meet the exigencies of the war. 

Art. 10. Whenever an ulterior aid of men should be required, the 
Province of Cordova engages to furnish it, on the same terms and under 
the same conditions as are above expressed. 

Art. 11. At the conclusion of the war, the Cordova force shall be 
restored to its Province, in the state in which it may then be ; the 
authorities thereof, in the mean while, binding themselves to see to the 
apprehension and conveyance back of such deserters as may have escaped 
from the place in which they were serving, in order to return home. 

Art. 12. The Province of Buenos Ayres will make every effort to 
send forward, from its own districts, as many recruits as possible, in 
order to strengthen the army of operations, so as to sustain the campaign 
in the firmest manner, as it has hitherto done. 

Art. 13. The present Stipulations shall be ratified by the two con- 
tracting governments, within the term of three days from the date 
hereof, on the part of the Government of Buenos Ayres, and written 
ten days from the arrival of the Envoy of Cordova in his Province, and 
mutually exchanged. 

Done in Buenos Ayres, this 21st of September, 1827. 

Signed, Francisco Ignacio Bustos 
Manuel Moreno 



58 



Ratification on the part of the Government of Buenos Ayres. 

We, the Governor and Captain General of the Province of Buenos Ayres, 
by virtue of a special power from the Honourable House of Representa- 
tives thereof, granted in the Sitting of the 22nd of the present month pf 
September, do hereby approve and ratify, in all it parts, the stipulations 
and agreements contained in the twelve preceding Articles. Buenos 
Ayres, September 23, 1827. 

. Signed, Manuel Dorrego 

(L. S.) Juan Ramon Balcarce 



Ratification of the Government of the Province of Cordova. 

We, the Governor and Captain General of the Province of Cordova, by 
virtue of special powers, granted by the Honourable House of Repre- 
sentatives, in the sitting of the 4th of October, do hereby approve and 
ratify the preceding stipulations, with the following additions : 

To Article 1. As is already agreed upon by this Province with the 
others forming the ancient Union, in the compacts of Federation. 

To Art. 2. The Government of the Province of Cordova having been 
empowered, and by the deliberations of its own Legislature being obliged, 
to convene a Congress, it leaves the declaration on this subject to the 
next meeting of the Delegates, who, at the opening, shall determine 
whether they are to have the character of a Congress, or a Convention. 

To Art. 8. But a due report thereof shall be made to the Province, 
through the medium of the National Executive, instead of " through 
the medium of that of Buenos Ayres." 

For which purpose we have caused the same to be sealed with the 
arms of the Province and countersigned by our Minister and Secretary. 
Signed in Cordova, this 7th of October, 1827, seven days after the 
arrival of our Envoy. 

Signed, Juan Bautista Bustos 

(L. S.) Juan Pablo Bulnes. 



59 



Powers conferred by the Honourable House of Representa- 
tives for the Ratification of the Convention. 

In the Hall of the Sittings, in Buenos Ayres, this 22nd day of Septem- 
ber, 1827 — the Honourable House of Representatives of the Province, 
having taken into consideration the Stipulations, entered into between 
the Government of the same and that of Cordova, in a secret sitting of 
this date, have thought proper to enact as follows : 

" The Governor and Captain General of the Province of Buenos Ayres 
is hereby authorized to ratify the Stipulations entered into, in this city, 
on the 21st of the current month of September, between the Province 
of Cordova and this, through the medium of their respective Plenipo- 
tentiaries. 

And the same is communicated to His Exeellency the Governor of the 
Province of Buenos Ayres, by orders of the aforesaid Honourable House 
of Representatives, for his information and such purposes as may be 
expedient. 

Signed, Victorio Garcia de Zuniga, President 
Eduardo Lahite, Secretary. 

To His Excellency, the Governor and 

Capt. General of the Province, &c. 



(B.) 

Confidential. 

Buenos Ayres, August 30, 1827. 
When the undersigned was invited by the minister of the government 
and foreign relations to explain the objects of his mission, and to which 
he readily consents, notwithstanding he does not think that all the ob- 
stacles have been overcome, in order to carry it into effect, it is a matter 
of temporary regret to him to be placed in the unpleasant alternative, on 
opening the preliminary topics of the negotiation, to have to beseech the 
minister to be pleased to make the Governor and Captain General of the 



60 



-Provinces acquainted with the purport of the present communication, 
as otherwise he should consider the secret implicated. 

The undersigned has no objection to enter on further discussions, if 
it should happen that the government is not sensible of the indispensable 
necessity of the present requisition. This requisition is demanded by 
the profound indignation of the offended people, and, finally, by public: 
justice, as well as the necessity of rendering the responsibility effective, 
and ridding the country of the demoralization and bad example of seeing 
men, whom society views in the light of criminals, descend from the 
seat of government, without any account being demanded of them for 
the exercise of their power. The Government of Buenos Ayres is called 
upon by a point of honour and, as it were, held by its responsibility to- 
wards the provinces, to see to the security of persons guilty of acts of 
arbitrary power. The escape of any one of them, would be the signal of 
alarm and give rise to numberless just distrusts, and I feel called upon 
at once to announce to the government of Buenos Ayres, that the dis- 
appearance of any one of them, would determine the undersigned to 
demand his passport, as he should consider any labours he might under- 
take as fruitless, under the impression that whatever might be said to 
the Province, empowering him, would be of no avail. 

Under this supposition, the undersigned Envoy requires of the Go- 
vernment of Buenos Ayres ; 

1st. The security and permanency in the country of every person be- 
longing to the Government that ceased its functions, previous to the 3rd 
of July. 

2nd. In like manner the security of the General of the army and of 
D»- Valentin Gomez. 

3rd. The collection of documents on which charges may be founded, 
together with an exact statement of all the branches of the Government, 
in statu quo, for the ensuing Convention. 

4th. A formal writing, duly drawn up, on the subject of the present 
requisition. 

The undersigned, in again conveying the assurance of his readiness to 
give any verbal explanations, requests the minister to duly notify the 



61 



same to His Excellency and salutes him with the greatest consideration 
and respect. 

Signed, Francisco Ignacio Bustos. 

To D. Manuel Moreno, Minister of the 
Government and Foreign relations. 



(C.) 

Private. 

Buenos Ayres, August 31, 1827. 

The private note of the Envoy of the Province of Cordova, dated yes- 
terday, has been the object of serious deliberation to the Government of 
Buenos Ayres. The latter at once agreed in the justice of rendering 
effective the responsibility of the individuals, composing the adminis- 
tration, previous to the 3rd of July. It feels, in an equal degree with 
the authorities whom the Envoy represents, as well as with all the Pro- 
vinces which have endured so long and scandalous a series of grievances, 
how important and necessary, it is, that public justice and the dignity of 
the laws should be satisfied, in the most possitive manner. With this 
view, combining the respect due to the general principles by which it is 
bound, with the deference it ought to shew to the requisition, contained 
in the Sr. Envoy's note, and with the observance of the law respecting 
Individual security, which is a sacred and majestic basis of all the rights 
and a compendium of that system of freedom to which we aspire, it has 
agreed to answer the Sr. Envoy's note, by promising him, in a solemn 
manner, that it will cause the most strict vigilance to be observed over 
the persons who composed the aforesaid administration, as well as 
General Alvear and D. Valentin Gomez ; that permission shall not be 
granted to them to leave the country, and that, in case they should 
attempt so to do, report thereof shall be made to the Legislature of the 
Province, in order that the latter may determine what may be expedient 
respecting the requisition of the Sr. Envoy ; that they shall be placed at 
the disposal of the Convention, or Congress, which may assemble as 
soon as the authority thereof has been acknowledged by this Province, 
and it has been made known to this government that their trial has 
been determined upon ; and that, in the mean while, the antecedents 
and vouchers which can throw light on the nature of the charges to he. 
preferred, shall go on collecting. 



62 



The Province of Buenos Ayres, which has endured great grievances 
through the conduct of these same individuals, cannot do less thafi re- 
quire reparation. Under existing circum stances , the government has 
not heen able to do more than to ordain that a summary and judicial 
inquiry should be instituted by the army, engaged in the campaign, res- 
pecting the criminal conduct attributed to the aforesaid D. Carlos Alvear ; 
and the minister and secretary who signs the present communication, 
informs the Sr. Envoy of all the above, for his information and govern- 
ment, &c. 



Signed, Manuel Moreno. 



To D. D. Francisco Ignacio Bustos, 
Envoy of the Province of Cordova. 



(D.) 



Secret and Additional Articles to the Convention of the 
21st of September, 1827. 

Article 1. In consequence of the express requisition, made on the 
part of the Province of Cordova, the Government of Buenos Ayres will 
not allow the departure from the country of the persons who composed 
the administration, previous to the 3rd of July ; nor of D. Carlos Alvear 
and D. Valentin Gomez ; and will take care that they appear to answer 
such charges as may hereafter be preferred against them by the 
Provinces. 

Art. 2. In just deference to the security which the Province of Cor- 
dova has demanded, the Government of Buenos Ayres offers to remove 
those public functionaries who are notoriously prejudicial to the present 
line of policy, adopted by the Provinces ; and it will take care that the 
forces are placed under Commanders who, by their principles and con- 
duct, shall inspire confidence and remove from the Province of Cordova 
and the remaining ones of the ancient Union, those alarming appre- 
hensions of again seeing themselves involved in a civil war, Buenos 
Ayres, September 21, 1827. 

Signed, Francisco Ignacio Bustos. 
Manuel Moreno. 



63 



Ratification. We the Governor and Captain General of the Province 
of Cordova, availing ourselves of the Powers granted to us hy the Repre- 
sentatives of the same, in the sitting of the 4th of October, Do hereby 
ratify the preceding additional Articles, and do approve, in every part, 
the foregoing Stipulations ; for which purpose we have caused the same 
to be sealed with the arms of the Province and countersigned by our 
Minister and Secretary. Signed in Cordova, this 7th of October, 1827, 
seven days after the arrival of our Envoy. 

Signed, Juan Bautista Bustos. 
L. S. Juan Pablo Bulnes. 



ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS 



RELATING TO THE ASSASSINATION OF COLONEL MANUEL 
DORREGO, GOVERNOR OF THE PROVINCE OF BUENOS 
AYRES AND HEAD OF THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE OF THE 
ARGENTINE REPUBLIC. 



Letter from D. Luis Dorrego, Brother of the deceased Go- 
vernor, ADDRESSED TO THE RlGHT HONOURABLE LORD PoNSONBY, 

late Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of 
H. B. M. near the Argentine Republic, and now in the same 

CHARACTER AT RlO DE JANEIRO. 

My Lord, — A trust sacred to me, as well on account of the subject 
and person referred to, as the peculiar circumstances under which it was 
confided to me, imposes upon me the paramount duty of addressing the 
present letter to your Lordship, for the due performance of which I re 
quire the collected energies of my mind, so as to be able to convey any 



64 



thing like an idea of the horrid event which i am about to sketch, with 
feelings of the most poignant grief, and under an agony of excruciating 
pain. 

The first Magistrate of the Argentine Republic, Colonel Manuel Dor- 
rego, has ceased to live. On the 13th inst. his blood was shed. The 
dignity with which he was invested ; the glorious titles to the nation's 
gratitude, which he had acquired by his unceasing opposition to the 
abuses of power ; the wounds he received on the field of battle, fight- 
ing for his country's independence ; the legality of his appointment, and 
the equity of his Administration ; the good understanding and harmony 
which prevailed during the time he was in office, with all the other 
Provinces constituting the Republic ; the foreign relations with power- 
ful nations, which he had successfully established ; his lenity, as an 
administrator of the laws ; his generosity towards his enemies — finally, 
that salutary peace which, under the mediation of Great Britain and 
through your Lordship's good offices, he restored to his native land ; — 
all, all, could not suffice to stay the butchering hand of those who were 
anxious to revel in his blood. These very considerations — powerful as 
they were, and calculated to excite sympathy in the most callous breast, 
served rather as so many incentives to urge for his violent and untimely 
death - y nor did his enemies, even for forms sake, and out of respect to 
the existing institutions, pause for a moment, or submit a matter of 
such importance to the test of a trial— an act of justice among us never 
yet refused to the most abandoned of criminals. This is no unfounded 
charge — it is, alas ! a melancholy truth. The fact, as here stated, has 
just occurred ; and, when recorded in history, posterity, as well as the 
present generation, must sit in judgment upon it, and impartiality will 
be their guide, unless it were possible for a moment to imagine that the 
ideas of justice and depravity are confounded, or that the empire of the 
laws and the abuse of power are synonymous terms. 

But my grief hurries me away. This delirium may, however, be 
deemed pardonable : I will endeavour to collect my thoughts. On the 
1st of this month, the first division of the army, which had just reached 
the capital, on its return from the campaign against the Brazilian em- 
pire — that same division for w T hich a triumphal entry was preparing, all 
in new uniforms, and the men having received part of their arrears of 
pay, in the moan while that the full estimates were making out, to 
cover which the funds were already prepared and held disposable— that 
same division, in a word, which on that very day, the 1st, was to have 



65 



partaken of an entertainment intended to be given by tlie Governor of 
Buenos Ayres and Chief Magistrate of the Republic, was found drawn 
up in line in the Square of La Victoria, at day-break, commanded by 
Colonel Juan Lavalle, who, of himself and thus supported, made known 
that the Constituted Authorities were set aside and no longer to be 
obeyed. 

My unfortunate brother beheld, in this unexpected movement, the 
evidence of a military insurrection ; the beginning of a civil war, and the 
most alarming blow aimed at the existing institutions of the country. 
He also considered that it was the duty of the Supreme Authority to put 
in motion all the available resources, in order to shield them, and sup- 
press this audacious attempt on the part of an insubordinate and licen- 
tious soldiery. In the city, sufficient elements certainly existed ; but, 
they were uncombined — the inhabitants and the Government having 
been taken by surprise. In so alarming a state of things, it would have 
been dangerous to assemble them, as numbers must have perished in 
the attempt. Motives of prudence, therefore, determined the Governor 
immediately to proceed to the country, which he did, leaving two of his 
Ministers in the Fortress, together with the few troops, still faithful to 
the Constituted Authorities. 

On the same day, (the 1st) strong parties of the division being scat- 
tered about the city and suburbs ; the square of La Victoria gleaming 
with bayonets, lances and sabres, and the inhabitants completely over- 
awed, Lavalle had himself proclaimed Provisional Governor, by a hand- 
ful of partisans in the church of St. Francis, a short distance from the 
square, notwithstanding a few moments previously, he had given as- 
surances that he was not in search of power, and would accept no com- 
mand. Nevertheless, he soon forgot his pledges, and, without the 
smallest hesitation, assumed the highest authority, thus conferred upon 
him in a tumultuary manner. The Fortress, in this state of things, 
yielding to circumstances, declined opposition ; and, after this example, 
the navy also tendered in their adhesion, 

The new Governor, Lavalle, soon afterwards proceeded to the country, 
with all the cavalry of the line, belonging to the 1st division. A Mani- 
festo of the principal officers of the division, expressive of their rights 
and their determination to deliberate upon them with arms in their 
hands,, was then published. The prospective benefits and evils were 
not, however, sufficiently balanced in this Manifesto, to render it possible 



66 



to form an opinion of the spirit in which this extraordinary movement 
had been undertaken, and whether it arose from public expediency, or 
a wish to obtain an undue ascendancy in the State. Time, however, 
goes on showing, in a manner the most palpable, what in the Manifesto 
had not been avowed. 

The Commandant-General of the militia of the surrounding country, 
Colonel Juan Emanuel Rosas, had, by this time, joined my unfortunate 
brother, and placed at his disposal a- considerable number of militia, to- 
gether with a small party of Indians, resolved to support the Authorities 
under which they were living. The whole of this force, independent of 
a. much larger number of men who, from considerable distances, and 
even from the city itself, were spontaneously marching on to incorporate 
themselves with the loyal troops, presented a heavy and unwieldy mass, 
eutirely destitute of discipline. In their march towards the town of 
Navarro, from twenty-five to thirty leagues distant from Buenos Ayres, 
that unavoidable and fatal rencontre took place, on the 9th instant, in 
which fortune and some accidents proved favourable to Lavalle. 

There still remained, towards the North, a small division which, pre- 
vious to the 1st of December, had been sent out to act against the 
hostile Indians. My brother trusted that this corps would continue 
faithful to the constituted Authorities, conformably to the pledges of 
the principal officers, and without entertaining the least apprehension 
of their infidelity, after the misfortune which occurred on the 9th, he 
proceeded on towards the position occupied by this division, with a 
view to place himself at the head of it, confident of its support. In his 
retreat, he reached an estate of mine, about 50 leagues distant from the 
capital, where, jointly with myself, he heard powerful reasons to 
induce him to think that he could rely on the subordination of the men 
and officers whom we were about to join. True, it is, that some per- 
sons put him on his guard, and told him not to be too confident ; but 
my brother's heart was devoid of guile. At dusk, in the evening of the 
10th, he set out, accompanied by myself, for the encampment, distant 
about two leagues . On his arrival, and whilst holding a conference 
with the Commandant of the Division, Colonel Angel Pacheco, a mutiny 
was excited by Colonel Bernardino Escrivano, among the troops, at the 
head of whom he placed himself, and immediately arrested us, as well 
as the lnwful commander of this corps. From that moment, the treat- 
ment which my brother and myself began to experience was the most 
outrageous and brutal that possibly can be imagined. We were then 



67 



led on, amidst numerous precautions, and under a heavy guard, ap- 
parently towards Buenos Ayres ; but, at a certain point, we were given 
to understand, that the " Delegated Government" had directed that we 
were to go toLavalle's camp, who still continued at Navarro. 

From that moment, as if the book of fate had been open to him, our 
victim became convinced that the sacrifice was resolved upon. In this 
critical situation, my brother did not turn his painful thoughts on his 
orphan children, who were about to be deprived of a parent; his 
country was paramount to all other considerations, and to its welfare all 
his cares were devoted. The Argentine Republic, and its character 
abroad, absorbed the whole of his solicitude. Then, it was, that he 
imposed upon me the imperious duty of informing your Lordship, in his 
name, of the awful situation in which he was placed ; and, above all, 
he enjoined me to implore your Lordship not to be so severe as to 
judge of our national character, by the dreadful event that was about to 
take place. He never could have thought that the Republic and Buenos 
Ayres could have acquiesced in his death, and much less in the inhuman 
manner in which he was dragged to an untimely end, without any other 
formality than a simple mandate ; yet he still hoped that mediators of 
high character would interpose, as, in fact, they did ; but the result was 
such as we unhappily had cause to deplore, and time only can explain 
the reasons of their failure.* 

He proudly called to mind the intimate relations which he had main- 
tained with your Lordship, and felt a complacency in the recollection of 
your Lordship having powerfully aided him, by your character and good 
offices, to prepare the greatest benefit it is possible to confer on a coun- 
try — external peace. My brother was anxious that your Lordship should 
be circumstantially made acquainted with all the particulars of the fatal 
destiny which awaited him, and he derived consolation from the con- 
fident hope that the prayer, which he was then addressing to your 
Lordship would be graciously received, whom he implored "to shield, 



* The mediators who interceded that nothing should be attempted 
against the life of Governor Dorrego, were, Mr. Woodbine Parish, Con- 
sul General and Charge" d'Affaires of H.B.M. ; Colonel Forbes, Charge 
d'Affaires of the United States, and M. Mandeville, Consul General of 
France. Their humane and respectable interposition was disregarded. 
Ed. 



68 



as much as possible, the credit of the Republic and Buenos Ayres, and 
save both from the foul stain about to be cast upon their history, by 
those who were hastening to shed his blood." 

This, my Lord, is the painful duty I was commissioned to discharge. 
On the 13th, three 'or four leagues from the town of Navarro, I was 
informed, that I was no longer a prisoner, and consequently must with- 
draw. Our separation then took place, and the illustrious victim was 
hurried on to Lavalle's quarters, and a very few hours afterwards the 
sad catastrophe was performed. Grief overcomes me! 

The Governor, elected by the city of Buenos Ayres, conformably to 
the laws— the chief Magistrate, commissioned by all the provinces to 
administer the general affairs of the Republic — the man whose existence 
was identified with the history of his country's independence ; who be- 
gan to serve among the founders of another State ;* who presented 
himself in Buenos Ayres, his native town, at the head of a body of 
volunteers, formed in another republic, as a reward for his services, 
and equiped out of his own private fortune ; — this devoted patriot, one 
of the firmest pillars of freedom ; one of the most deserving of his 
country's gratitude ; the brave defender of the South American cause, 
as long as the power of Spain was an object of dread ; — this enlightened 
champion among freemen, was, in short, at the age of between 41 and 42 
years, shot at Navarro, by virtue of a mere military order ! Such an act 
might have been expected from the Turkish Divan ! Alas ! what an alarm- 
ing contrast does this most awful event present to the motives, alleged 
for the military insurrection of the 1st inst. 

It remains for me solely to add that, to the very last, he was true to 
his character. He neither dreaded, nor contemned the death before his 
eyes. When he was ordered to prepare to die, his first answer was — 
tell General Lavalle that, if the Province has no laws" — here he paused 
— " no ; tell him only that the Governor and Captain-General of the 
Province of Buenos Ayres and the chief Magistrate, entrusted with the 
general affairs of the Republic, has been duly informed of the General's 
order." He wrote more in the single hour, granted to him for his pre- 
paration, than another could have done in a longer time, at his ease ; 



* Governor Dorrego first joined the army in Chili, where he w; 
pursuing his studies, when the Revolution broke out. Ed. 



69 

and, when the last moment came, he expired like one worthy of the 
post which he had held— filled with valour and serenity. At the funeral 
rites, which I had performed for him on the 19th, as a private individual, 
no one was specially invited ; yet Buenos Ay res never beheld so vast a 
concourse of all classes and both sexes ; nor was consternation ever 
before so strongly depicted on the countenances of an assembled mul- 
titude 

I have now, my Lord, complied with the trust confided to me by 
my illustrious brother. Amidst the affliction and mourning in which an 
unhappy family is plunged, allow me to offer to your Lordship our 
sincere respects, as well as the assurances of esteem and consideration 
with which I remain your Lordship's obedient servant, 

LUIS DORREGO, 



Copy of a Letter from the same to Woodbine Parish, Esq. 
H.B. M. Charge d'affaires and Consul-General, at Buenos 
Ayres. 

Buenos Ayres, Dec. 29, 1829. 
Sir, — If to any other than yourself, or one who happened not to have 
been in Buenos Ayres on the inauspicious day of the 1st instant, I was 
addressing the present Letter, I should have to undergo the painful 
mortification of describing an occurrence, the bare recollection of which 
drives me to despair and rends my aching heart. But, I consider that 
you are well aware what that day really was, as also the following ones, 
and I can plead this as an excuse for not entering into details. The 
annexed letter besides contains what I omit, in this, and may supply th* 
place of any additional remarks from which I am thereby relieved. 

My unfortunate brother, for having maintained his post, as Governor 
and Captain-General of the Province, and as the Head of the Republic, 
was basely delivered up and dragged to execution, without having been 
able to obtain that which is not refused even to the most infamous 
criminals. When we parted, having a presentiment that he was about 
to be led to death, I received from his own mouth an injunction to 
write to the Honourable Lord Ponsonby and yourself, his relations with 
whom were fresh upon his mind, and remembered with the warmest 
esteem and the highest consideration. 

K 



70 



"Mr. Parish," said he to me, "must have known that the people 
of Buenos Ayres^are not ferocious, and that the Republic has no part 
whatever in my sacrifice. Beseech him, in my name," did he add, " to 
do every thing in his power to prevent an opinion being formed of the 
Argentine people, from the horrid catastrophe which is about to happen," 
and which, in fact, did so happen, on the 13th instant, very few hours 
after our separation for ever. " From Mr. Parish's knowledge it cannot 
be hidden," did he further say, "that in the moment of violent con- 
vulsions, the most unjust and injudicious acts are committed, and even 
the most enormous crimes perpetrated ; but, that neither the Argentine 
people have any complaints against me ; nor is it they who have raised 
the hue and cry ; nor is their character cruel. Buenos Ayres did not 
decree my death ; the inhabitants, doubtless, will bewail it, and when 
the rest of the Republic hear of it, scarcely will they be able to recover 
from their surprise, unless it is to be struck with fresh dismay. Would 
to God ! that, in my grave, may be buried in oblivion those fatal pas- 
sions which appear disposed to desolate our country ! Would to God I 
that the Supreme Being, who presides over the destinies of nations, may 
allow of no more victims than myself, and disperse those meetings, lavish 
of human blood."* 

In the excruciating agony by which I am overpowered, and when even 
to speak may be deemed dangerous, I cannot suffer the blood of my 
unfortunate brother to turn cold, before I have complied with his last 
wishes. May Mr. Parish be pleased kindly to admit the request of an 
illustrious victim, by forwarding the inclosed to its address, in the mean 
while that anguish falls to my lot; and joining in the assurance of my 
regard and particular esteem, lam, &c. 

(Signed) Luis Dorrego. 



Letter from the same to Colonel John Forbes, the United 
States Charge d'affaires, at Buenos Ayres. 

Buenos Ayres, Dec. 29, 1828. 

Sir, — Previous to the administration of Colonel Manuel Dorrego, and 
during the period he held authority, you were acquainted with him ; and 

* Lodges held in Buenos Ayres for political purposes, and which had 
been transplanted to the army. Tr. 



71 

yon were also in this capital when the insurrection of the 1st instant 
broke out, as well as when one of those great blows were struck which, 
in the heat of powerful revolutions, not only carry terror and dismay to 
the stoutest heart and fill the reflecting mind with horror, but also en- 
danger the life and preservation of the State. You, in short, cannot be 
ignorant, that through one of those measures which characterize certain 
periods in which nations are sometimes placed, and fix the attention of 
posterity, doubtless, more just than the present generation, that man 
has just disappeared from the earth, whose name was inscribed on the 
glorious pages of the history of our Republic ; whose blood and patri- 
mony were lavished on behalf of his country, ever since the year when 
the cry of freedom was first raised, and who, in the most difficult and 
perilous moments, being through his owu merits a second time raised 
to the first magistracy of the Province, gave to the Republic an honour- 
able peace, and to the Oriental Province a new existence. Your re- 
sidence in this capital relieves me from the necessity of entering into 
details which my feelings would scarcely allow me to trust to paper. 
For this reason, I shall at once proceed to perform the duty imposed 
upon me by a sacred trust, confided to me by my unfortunate brother, on 
whose behalf your mediation and that of other respectable friends of 
humanity proved fruitless. He and myself being led on prisoners 
towards Buenos Ayres, from the moment we arrived at a certain point 
of the road, and he found he was going to Lavalle's camp, who was 
still at Navarro, the Governor and Captain-General of this Province 
and Head of the Argentine Republic foresaw that they were dragging 
him on to execution. About four leagues from the spot where death 
was inflicted upon him, I was set at liberty and told to withdraw. Pre- 
vious to our eternal separation, and on the 13th, the very day on which 
he was executed, his whole conversation was worthy of the post which 
he held. Neither the din of those arms which were about to be turned 
against his own person ; the treachery through which his seizure had 
been effected, nor the outrages by which it was aggravated, depressed 
his spirits, for a single instant. "I enjoin you," said he to me, "to 
write Mr. Forbes in my name, not to judge of the Argentine people by 
the horrid catastrophe that is about to take place. Beseech him, most 
earnestly, to admit the prayer which I send him to shield, as much as he 
can, the credit of our country from the stain that is about to be cast on 
the pages of its history, by those who are about to shed my blood." 

We took leave. The victim was hurried on to where Senor Lavallc 
was, and there, a few hours after his arrival, without being allowed 



72 



what among us is granted to the very last— even the most abandoned of 
criminals, the leaden balls which had respected his life during so many 
battles, fought for our independence and the dignity of the [Republic, 
soon left the illustrious sufferer a lifeless corpse, stretched neglected on 
the ground. 

It is out of my power to proceed. It will suffice that I have fulfilled 
the last trust of my unfortunate brother. His days were terminated by 
the simple mandate of a military order, possibly agreed upon in one of 
those secret meetings — meetings semingly of more power, in their clan- 
destine deliberations, than the laws themselves, and the respectable 
mediation which you and others timely interposed. 

Even how to die, did he leave behind him lessons of serenity and 
firmness. On its being intimated to him that he was to prepare for 
death; "tell General Lavalle," said he, "that if the Province of 
Buenos Ayres has no laws ; but ro"— he paused — " ell him only that 
the Governor and Captain-General of Buenos Ayres an« he one charged 
with the general affairs of the Republic, is duly made acquainted with the 
General's order." 

You, Sir, are a Republican, a son of that Republic which is the true 
model of freedom, and you will well know how to value this instance of 
energy. You will also be pleased to receive this letter, as if it had been 
written by one who no longer exists, since it is he who recommends 
the contents to you, from the spot where his mangled remains now 
rest in peace. I am overcome. I can add no more, than to offer you 
assurance of my respect and the warmest consideration, with which I 
remain, Sir, &c. 

(Signed) Luis Dorrego. 



Letters of the unfortunate Governor to his Family, written 
a few moments before his execution. 

TO HIS WIFE. 
" My dearest Angelita,— At this moment they have intimated to me 
that I am to die ; I do not know why ; but Divine Providence, in whom 



73 



at this critical moment I place my trust, has so willed it. I pardon all 
my enemies, and request my friends not to take any steps whatsoever to 
avenge the treatment received by me. 

" My dearest life, educate our amiable children, since it has been thy 
lot not to live any longer happy in company of thy unfortunate 

" Manuel Dorrego." 

TO HIS DAUGHTERS. 

" My dearest daughter, Angelita, — I forward to you a ring, as a keep- 
sake from your unfortunate father, 

" Manuel Dorrego." 

" My dearest daughter, Isabel, — I return you the braces which you 
made for your unfortunate father, 

" Manuel Dorrego." 

" Be a Catholic and virtuous — this is the religion that consoles me 
at this moment." 

TO HIS FRIEND, DON MANUEL JOSE AZCUENAGA. 

" My friend, and through you to all my friends, — Within an hour 
they have notified to me that I am to die ; I do not know why ; Divine 
Providence has so willed it. Adieu, my good friends, and ever remem- 
ber your 

" Manuel Dorrego." 

" P. S. At this moment, the Catholic religion is my only consolation." 

TO HIS NEPHEW, S* D. FORTUNATO MIRO. 

" My dear Nephew, — I request you to arrange my affairs with Angela, 
if any thing is left for that unfortunate being to subsist upon. Receive 
the last adieus of your uncle. 

Signed, Manuel Dorrego .* 



* The following are copies of the original letters. 

" Mi querida Angelita — En este momemto me intiman que dentro de 
una bora debo morir ; ignoro porque, mas la Providencia divina, en la 
cual confio en este momento critico, asi lo ha querido. Perdono a todos 
mis enemigos, y suplico a mis amigos que no den paso alguno an desa- 
gravio de lo recibido por mi. 



74 



Several memorandums follow, respecting his domestic affairs, and 
among them is the following remarkable one. 

" Out of the one hundred thousand dollars which the State owes me, 
in public funds, you will only receive (he is addressing his wife) two 
thirds, and the remainder you will leave to the State." 

This was a reward which the Province of Buenos Ayres decreed to 
him, for having concluded the Treaty of Peace with the Empire of Brazil, 
and of it Lavalle's government has since ordered his family to be 
deprived. 

These memorandums conclude with the following words, addressed 
to his widow. 



" Mi vida ; educa a esas amables criaturas, s£dfeliz, ya que no lo has 
podido ser en compania del desgraciado 

" Manuel Dorrego." 

A sus hijas. 

" Mi querida Angelita — Te accompano esa sortija, para memoria de 

tli desgraciado Padre 

" Manuel Dorrego." 

" Mi querida Isabel — Te devuelvo los tiradres que hicistes a tu in- 

fortunado Padre 

" Manuel Dorrego." 

" S£d Catolica y virtuosa, que es la religion que me consuela en este 
momento." 

M. S. Don Miguel Jose Azcuenaga. 
" Mi amigo, y por V. a todos— Dentro de una hora me intiman debo 
morir, ignoro porque ; la Providencia asi lo ha querido. A Dios, mis 
buenos Amigos, acuerdense Vms de su 

" Manuel Dorrego." 
" P. S. En este momento la Religion Catolica es mi unico consuelo." 

A su Sobrino, Sr- D. Fortunato Miro. 
" Mi apreciado Sobrino. — Te suplico arregles mis cuentas con Angela, 
por sialgo letoca para vivir a esa desgraciada. Recive el adios de tu tio, 

" Manuel Dorrego." 



75 

** My life— order funeral obsequies to be performed for me, without 
any parade," another proof that he dies in the religion of his fore- 
fathers, ** who is thy ever, 

*• Manuel Dorrego." 



In the United Service Journal and Naval and Military Magazine, of 
the 1st of June, 1829, are the following particulars, headed, 

" THE LAST HOURS OF DORREGO. 

" This chieftain was at the head of the Buenos Ayrean government. 
A general, named Lavalle, headed an insurrection against him, and com- 
pelled him and his party to leave the city. He was pursued, and the 
opposing faction coming up with his rear, an action ensued, in which 
Dorrego was defeated. A few days afterwards, he was taken by sur- 
prise, and carried to his enemy. 

" Upon his arrival at Navarro, the head quarters of General Lavalle, 
an officer was sent to him to say, that he was to be shot in an hour, by 
command of General Lavalle. In reply, he sent a message to the General 
to say, that he considered himself under the protection of the laws, and 
demanded to be tried by them. The officer came back, and said, that 
General Lavalle considered Don Manuel Dorrego, to be out of the pale of 
the law, (fuera de la ley) that his execution would take place in an hour, 
and that he would do well to employ it in leaving any written directions 
he wished, as to his affairs. Dorrego answered, (muy bueno) 'very 
well!' He then wrote the following letters:" (These letters are 
printed above.) 

" Having written these, he desired to see a priest. One had already 
been sent for, but he proved to be a near relation of Dorrego's, and was 
so overcome with grief, that Dorrego was forced to comfort him, in- 
stead of receiving his assistance. 

" He then said he wished to see Colonel la Madrid, who came to him 
immediately. He reminded him of their old friendship, and that they 
had often been fellow soldiers in former times. He said he hoped he 
would not refuse his last request, that he would accompany him to the 
place of execution. 



76 



" Madrid was affected to tears. He said he could not — it was im- 
possible ; he had not the heart to witness the death of his friend. 

" Dorrego then begged him to change jackets with him, and then he 
said he was ready. They begged him to go in a coach, as it was some 
distance they had to take him ; but he said no ; he would rather walk. 

" They then moved on, and when he arrived at the place where he 
was to be shot, he bowed to the officer of the guard who accompanied 
him. They wished to bandage his eyes, but he begged them not to do 
so ; and his hour was over !" 

All the London papers, at the time expressed themselves in terms of 
the strongest indignation on the subject of this unlawful, inhuman and 
bloody deed, and the Morning Herald published the preceding letter 
from the brother of the late Governor, transmitted to Lord Ponsonby. 

It now turns out that Governor Dorrego 's death was secretly resolved 
upon by the revolutionists, from the very moment the military insur- 
rection of the 1st of December commenced, at a secret meeting held by 
them. When the news arrived of his arrest and that they were con- 
veying him to the city of Buenos Ayres, it was determined that, without 
entering, he should be taken to Lavalle's camp and there immediately 
executed, defenceless and untried as he was. 



List of the Members of the Secret Junta that determined 
on dorrego's execution. 

D. Julian Segundo de Aguero — a Clergyman and Minister of the go- 
vernment during the Administration of Rivadavia. 

Colonel Francisco Fernandez de la Cruz, Minister of War under 
Rivadavia. 

D. Salvador Maria del Carril, a native of San Juan, and Minister of 
Finance during Rivadavia's Goverment. 

D. Valentin Gomez, a Clergyman, and the noted negociator of the 
scheme to place the Duke of Lucca on the throne of Buenos Ayres, under 
French auspices. 



77 

R. Zenon Videla, Chief of Police to Rivadavia. 

Colonel Ignacio Alvarez y Thomas. 

D. Manuel Gallardo, a Lawyer. 

D. Juan Cruz Varela, Editor of the Tiempo, 

William Brown, Admiral and Provisional Governor. 

D. Jose Miguel Diaz Velez, his Minister. 

M. Barenenes, a Frenchman, and late Agent of Rivadavia, in Paris, 
specially to send out Colonists. This foreigner entered the Junta, 
crying out " death to Dorrego" (Muera Dorrego). 



Permission was not allowed to bring the late Governor's body to the 
city, fearful lest some event might happen like what befel Csesar. The 
corpse was left, several hours, exposed upon the ground, at Navarro. 

The official Report which Lavalle forwarded of the execution, blackens 
the horrid picture here presented, for, after announcing that it was 
done by " his orders," he dares to recommend himself to the notice of 
history. From this insult, offered to public morals, it is to be sup- 
posed that the men who directed him, cunningly availed themselves of 
his ignorance, which, if any thing, is equalled only by his brutality, 
in order to make him say that the execution was done by his own order, 
so as hereafter to throw upon him the whole responsibility. 



Official Report of General Lavalle. 

Navarro, Dec. 13, 1828. 

Senor Minister, — I hereby inform the delegated Government that 
Colonel Manuel Dorrego has just been shot, by my orders, in front of 
the regiments composing this division. 

L 



78 



History, Senor Minister, will impartially judge whether Colonel 
Dorrego ought, or not, to have died ; and whether in sacrificing him to 
the tranquillity of a nation which he had plunged into mourning, I could 
have been actuated by any other feeling than that of the public good. 

I wish the people of Buenos Ayres to be convinced that the death of 
Colonel Dorrego is the greatest sacrifice I could make on their behalf. 
I salute the Senor Minister, and remain, with due consideration, &c. 

(Signed) Juan Lavalle. 

To His Excellency, The Minister of the Government, 
D. Jose Miguel Diaz Velez. 



It may here be proper to remark that this blackest of outrages, com- 
mitted against personal security ; this gross aud bloody violation of the 
laws, and this enormous and glaring crime against humanity, roused 
the indignation of the several Provinces ; dissolved the Federal Union, 
existing between them and Buenos Ayres ; gave rise to simultaneous 
declarations on the part of the local governments, and, in fact, brought 
an irritated and beseiging army round the city, anxious to avenge the 
insult offered to the nation at large, and yet, desirous of preserving the 
property of a number of innocent individuals, unfortunately involved 
through the acts of a faction, headed by a few restless and ambitious 
officers. It would be tedious to present translations of all these protests 
and declarations ; but we will select the most important ones, and head 
them, 

JUDGMENT OF THE PROVINCES. 



Proclamation of the Government. 

Cordova, Dec. 10, 1826.* 

Countrymen ! Liberty, that valuable gift that has been bestowed upon 
us, Americans, and which it has cost us so much blood to acquire, is, 

* Consequently, several days previoustoDorrego's death beingknown. Tr. 



79 



at this moment, threatened by a faction, who have conceived that it 
devolves upon them to command and sell us. 

Citizens ! The man who, in Buenos Ayres, presided over the anarchical 
movement of the 1st instant, is the same who has so often had the 
hardihood .to declare and openly boast that he should never be satiated 
with spilling the blood of the Provincials. This is his avowed feeling 
and that of the Lodge to which he belongs. Calculate therefore, what 
kind of happiness these people can dispense to our America ; call to 
mind the periods when this parricidal faction filled the first stations in 
the country, and you will then be convinced of what they are capable. 

Citizens ! Those who have committed the audacious outrage of 
throwing down the general government, which had been constituted 
through the formal expression of the uniform wishes of the Provinces, 
by placing themselves at the head of the troops whom you had destined 
to support the honour and preserve the integrity of the Republic, are the 
same who, in 1814, solicited Charles IV. to afford them a branch of 
the Bourbon Family, in order that he might reign as a king over us ; 
they are the same who, in 1815, protested to the Spanish ambassador, 
at Rio de Janeiro, Count de Casa-Flores, that if they had interfered in 
the affairs of America, it was for the purpose of better securing the 
rights of H. C. M. in this quarter ; they are the same who, in 1816, sold 
us to King John IV. of Portugal; they are the same who, in 1819, 
sought to barter us to the Prince of Lucca ; they are, finally, the authors 
of all the misfortunes which have befallen this part of America, for, 
when it has not been in their power to rule over us, they have promoted 
a civil war, from the year 1820, and by the effusion of blood, only, has 
it been, that they have sustained a government, expressly rejected by 
the Provinces. 

Fellow Countrymen ! If, in the month of September, 1811, when this 
same faction cast down the government which, amidst enthusiastic joy 
and gladness, you had instituted, an exemplary punishment had then 
taught these wretehes that they could not trample upon the sacred 
rights of the people, with impunity, our section of America would not, 
this day, have to deplore so many misfortunes. From that source 
issued the fatal stream of all our calamities j that is the origin of 
our not being now constituted into a nation, after eighteen years of 
oscillations and unceasing sacrifices. 



80 

Fellow-countrymen; It is time that justice should occupy the place of 
mercy ; that the whole world should know that, for eighteen years, you 
have been the sport of Lodges. Through the benignity of your charac- 
ter, you are also just ; but, you are entitled to avenge so many outrages. 
Therefore, sustain your rights, if you wish to be free ; punish the 
wretches who dare to provoke you, and you will then appear in your 
true dignity, in the eyes of mankind. Numberless proofs have you had 
of the sacrifices which he is ready to make, for your honour and welfare, 
who now signs himself your true countryman, 

Juan Bautista Bustos. 



Cordova, Dec. 10, 1828. 

The anarchical insurrection of the 1st instant, headed by General 
Lavalle, in Buenos Ayres, is a practical lesson of what the Provinces 
have to expect from that fatal Lodge,* the great object of which, is, 



* In this document, as well as in the last words of Governor Dorrego, 
the existence of that subterranean meeting is denounced, which decrees 
the destinies of the Government, and pronounces on the lives of the 
citizens ; a species of Masonry very different from that of the Societies, 
known by this name, in other parts, and into which men of honour and 
probity can ask admittance, without a blush. It is revolting to see a 
Clergyman, like Aguero, and at the same time a Curate, belonging to 
the Cathedral Church, acting as President of the Star Chamber, which 
decreed Governor Dorrego's death, and signing his name, with the 
private mark of that same Lodge, by adding to it M., perfectly visible 
in the flourish that accompanies his sign manual. The origin of this 
Lodge is Spanish, and was shipped, to come among us, from Cadiz. 
Curate Aguero was, besides, the advocate of the Peninsular Monopolists, 
in 1809, by opposing a Free Trade, in the name of the Cadiz Board of 
Commerce, in a writing, addressed to Viceroy Cisneros, now before us, 
and in which, among other absurd arguments, he alleges, " that the 
English are heretics and would pervert the country, if they were 
allowed to enter our ports with their merchandize." In 1823, he pro- 
posed a previous censure, in the discussions relating to the freedom of 
the press, in the Legislature of Buenos Ayres. Ed. 



81 



the extermination of those beneficent institutions which we had formed 
for ourselves. Accustomed always to throw the country into a state of 
conflagration, by resorting to calumnies, intrigues, and other wicked 
devices, in order to secure to themselves the highest appointments in 
the Republic, of which they were, over and over again, stripped by 
public opinion, the members of that secret and pernicious conspiracy 
were unable patiently to endure the tranquillity which the Provinces 
were enjoying, and through the medium of which they were tending to 
constitute themselves under that form of government, deemed best 
suited to their position and circumstances. 

Availing themselves of the very same men whom the Provinces had 
devoted to the support of a national war, they have usurped the rights 
of all, by stripping Colonel Manuel Dorrego, not only of the govern- 
ment of the Province of Buenos Ayres, of which an armed and insubor- 
dinate force never could be a competent organ, but also of the attributes 
of the National Executive, with which the Provinces had invested him, 
and who had faithfully corresponded to the confidence which they had 
placed in him, as is proved by the Convention of the 27th of last 
August. 

This event is, doubtless, the first signal of a civil war. Determined 
that the Provinces shall have no will of their own, they pull down every 
thing that had been built up by them, by invariably sustaining, with the 
greatest vigour and without sparing means, the w T ork of their own 
hands. Numerous examples might be offered to the consideration of 
your Excellency, the Governor, to whom the undersigned addresses 
himself, if a practical knowledge had not made us all severally ac- 
quainted with the results. It will suffice to call to mind the quantity of 
American blood that was spilled, in order to sustain President Riva- 
davia, whose permanency at the head of affairs was reproved by the 
Provinces. Compare all these facts with the event that has given 
occasion to the present communication, and the tendency of the pro- 
ceedings of these men will be made apparent, who evidently, encouraged 
by the impunity that attended former deeds of a similar kind, have been 
led on eagerly to undertake others likely to favour their aspiring views. 

The undersigned considers it his duty to submit so remarkable an 
event to the consideration of the Governor of Santa F6, in order that, 
sensible of the necessity of watching over the tranquillity of his Pro- 
vince, as well as the general peace and welfare of the Republic, he may 



82 



place himself on his guard against the hostile attacks with which these 
men, who by means of an armed force, have already succeeded in 
wresting the government from the hands of him to whom it had been 
legally confided, seek to invert the order established throughout the 
whole extent of this Republic. 

The undersigned Members of the Government avail themselves of this 
opportunity to renew to His Excellency the Governor, the assurance of 
that respect and high consideration with which they are, &c. 

Signed, Juan Bautista Bustos 
Juan Pablo Bulnes. 

To His Excellency, The Governor and Captain General 
of the Province of Santa Fe, &c. 



DECLARATION OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE PROVINCE 
OF SANTA FE'. 

General Lopez to the Government of Buenos Ayres. 

December 30, 1828. 
The undersigned Governor and Captain General of the Province of 
Santa F£, has received a communication, addressed to him, under date 
of the 13th instant, by S<"- D. Jos£ Miguel Diaz Velez, as Minister and 
Secretary General of the provisional government of the Province of 
Buenos Ayres, in which he informs him of the change that had there 
taken place, on the 1st instant, the result of which was, that D. Juan 
Lavalle, a General of the armies of the Republic, had been named Pro- 
visional Governor, by the unanimous wishes of the citizens, and the 
government afterwards delegated to D. William Brown, Admiral of the 
national squadron. 

Whatever may be the propriety with which the S>". Secretary calls the 
tumultary and disorderly meeting of a few persons, assembled in a 
church,* the unanimous wishes of the citizens of a Province, like that 



* On the morning of the 1st of December, the troops, who had just 
arrived from serving on the Eastern Bank, were drawn up in line by 



83 



of Buenos Ayres ; notwithstanding the undersigned is unceasingly re- 
ceiving positive information that the great majority bitterly reprove the 
change of the 1st instant, and although the motives alleged in the Mani- 
festo of the 5th, appear, in some respects, futile, and, in others, calum- 
niously false, the Governor of Santa Fe would confine the whole of his 
interference, in this affair, to his acknowledging the receipt of the com- 
munication above alluded to, if he did not find himself under the dis- 
agreeable necessity of answering it, by a most solemn requisition. If 
this Manifesto of the provisional government did not atrociously outrage 
his own honour ; if the fresh resolutions, entered into by the gentlemen 
who sign it and at the present moment rule in Buenos Ayres., did not 
trample upon the respect due to the Province over which he presides, 
and if the change of the 1st, did not wear another character, very dis- 
tinct from that which the S* - - Secretary attributes to it, the undersigned 
would have observed a profound silence. 

It is indeed most singular that the note, to which reply is herein 
made, does not express that the movement alluded to was effected by a 
division of the national army and against the supreme head of the Re- 
public, entrusted with the direction of the war and foreign relations. 
This is the point that most interested the Provinces to know, and the 
Governor of Santa F£ has not been able to look at that event, in any 
other point of view. Hence, is it that, from the moment he received the 
note of His Excellency, S«". Dn. Manuel Dorrego, in which, from Las 
Canuelas, under date of the 2nd, he informed him of the insurrection 
of the national troops, demanding of him his cooperation, in order 
to make them sensible of their duty, and enjoining him, for the very 
same purposes, to communicate the event to the other Provinces, the 
undersigned, as the Head of one of them which acknowledged in His 
Excellency the National Authority, and in the character of a General of 



Lavalle, in the main square, and after the government being overthrown, 
his partisans and the rabble assembled in the church of St. Francis, 
contiguous to the square, where the troops were still under arms, and 
there, without any other formality, Lavalle was declared Provisional 
Governor, and, as such, assumed the functions of the government. 
After the nomination was over, the troops proceeded to their quarters ; 
but, so alarmed were the principal inhabitants of the city, the only 
theatre of the exploit above alluded to, that they remained tranquil at 
home j or, were silent spectators of what was passing. Ed. 



84 



the Republic, did not hesitate, a moment, to answer the appeal made to 
him. He at once placed the forces, of which he could dispose, subject 
to the orders of the General Government, and forwarded to the other 
Provinces the details of so remarkable an occurrence as that which had 
just happened. In this sense, he, at that time, acted, in support of the 
legitimate authority, and in the same would he this day act, if a fresh 
crime had not left the nation without a leader and a head. There is 
now no longer any national authority to support, de facto ; but, there 
are enormous injuries inflicted on the Province of Santa Fe ; injuries 
which its depositaries of power cannot fail to visit on the heads of those 
who forcibly assumed to themselves the Government of Buenos Ayres. 

It is public and notorious that the first division of the national army, 
just arrived from the war in the Oriental Provinces, was the exclusive 
instrument that effected the change, to which the Sr. Secretary's report 
alludes ; and it is also well ascertained that neither the troops, com- 
posing the garrison of Buenos Ayres, nor the local militia, replaced by 
that same division, took any part whatsoever in the deed. The national 
troops alone were concerned in this outrage ; they alone committed 
this criminal act against the particular institutions of one of the Pro- 
vinces, as well as against the Supreme Government under whose au- 
thority they bore arms. The General and officers who headed them, on 
this ignominious occasion, are highly responsible for the shameful abuse 
of the power they exercised over an armed force, principally composed 
of men sent forward by the Provinces in order to defend the rights of 
the nation. Hence, have those same rights been outraged by the very 
army, destined to protect and defend them. From the time when the 
several Provinces first delegated their national powers and concentrated 
them in the person of S r - Dorrego, Governor of Buenos Ayres ; from 
the moment his own Province consented to this delegation, and to it 
joined her own, from that period, do I contend, she and the rest viewed 
and respected, in the person of the Goveanor of Buenos Ayres, the pro- 
visional Head of the Republic. From that moment, therefore, the 
Republic alone could strip its general representative of the national au- 
thority conferred upon him. General Lavalle, by divesting him of that 
trust, by ordering him to be shot, and then placing himself in the very 
seat ; by him before legally filled, clearly has violated the respect and 
consideration due to the several and collective Provinces. That of Santa 
F£, therefore, now demands of him an account of all this. She wishes 
to be satisfied as to the motives which induced General Lavalle to strip 
Governor Dorrego of the national powers with which he was invested, 



85 



by purposely exciting a sedition in that very army, acting under the 
orders of a supreme chief; in this manner subverting, to an extreme 
that it would not now be easy to calculate, the order provisionally es- 
tablished, and under which the Republic was proceeding on to a more 
regular system of organization, and thus leaving it without a head, as 
well as endangering that honourable preliminary Treaty of peace, 
wrested from the Brazilian empire, during the administration und 
through the efforts of S" - . Dorrego. The government of Santa F£, above 
all, wishes to know the powerful and urgent reasons which General 
Lavalle had to cause his own supreme chief, as well as of the whole Re- 
public, to be shot, by his own orders. 

The undersigned Governor also expects to be informed to what 
national purpose the armies and squadron of the Republic have been 
since applied ; who command them, and with what powers ; as well as 
the state of the foreign relations, who administers them, and under 
what authority. 

But, General Lavalle, the provisional Governor of Buenos Ayres, far 
from hitherto satisfying the Provinces as to the conduct he pursued on 
the 1st and subsequent days of the present month, dares to insult them 
afresh in his Manifesto of the 5th, and also to calumniate his superiors 
in a base and revolting manner. That of Santa F£ is roused to indig- 
nation, by the arrogant threats and accusations which this document 
puts forth, and her Governor certainly will not tolerate them. If the 
officer who at present rules over Buenos Ayres, had confined himself to 
the imputation of illegality against those governments which surrounded 
S r - Dorrego, at the time of the suppression of the Oriental Junta, the 
ridiculousness of the reproach would render it unnecessary to make the 
present appeal ; but, it comes accompanied by other serious charges, 
and the Manifesto in itself seems framed expressly to wound the feelings 
of the Provinces at large, as well as of the individuals presiding over 
them. " After the Oriental Legislature had been dispersed," it says, 
" this Province, like the rest, remained subjected to the caprice of its 
chieftain." The Province of Santa Fe, in which the Legislative and 
Judicial Powers are exercised independently of the Executive, in the 
phrase above quoted, is described as a group of slaves, submissive to the 
voice of a master, and she demands satisfaction for this infamous charge. 
She wishes to know the acts which justify so unwarrantable an allega- 
tion, so offensive to her character, and what are the reasons which 



M 



86 

actuated the Government of Buenos Ayres to pronounce an opinion 
against her first Magistrate, in so hostile a sense. 

The provisional government of Buenos Ayres carries its audacious 
insults to the extreme of attributing to the Provinces and their consti- 
tuted authorities, a participation in those robberies and that delapidation 
of the provincial treasure which it imputes to S r -Dorrego. " From the 
period this citizen took charge of the Government," does the Manifesto 
set forth, " the people of Buenos Ayres, who had always been a model 
to the rest, became a prize, distributed among all ; the public revenue 
was destined to enrich the governments of the Provinces ; our trea- 
sure was continually laid out in the purchase of metallic money, to be 
sent to the governors of the others, without our having seen, up to the 
present moment, the result of any of these sacrifices." The Governor 
of Santa Fe would be unworthy of the people over whom he presides, 
and even of associating with upright men, if he did not demand of the 
ruler of Buenos Ayres a declaration, as public and solemn as the Mani- 
festo itself, of those sums with which S r - Dorrego enriched him, at the 
expence of the Treasury of Buenos Ayres ; a statement of the metallic 
monies which have been remitted, and of which the result has not been 
made known. 

Strength, Sr- Secretary, confers no right to defame, in this manner, 
and the man of honour is at all times warranted in avenging offences of 
such a kind, or perishing in the attempt. The Governor of Santa F6 
has, in truth received metallic money, for the purpose of equipping and 
paying the army of the North, which he had the honour to command in 
chief ; but, the result of this service has been as public, as that peace 
was glorious to which this same expedition so greatly contributed ;* as 

* By means of this force, the towns, composing the Missions, were 
conquered and regained from the Emperor ; a service that never could 
be effected by the bloody government of Rivadavia, at all times more 
stirring in the civil, than the external war ; and by this means also was 
Brazil more strongly induced to sue for peace. This advantage was 
universally felt in Buenos Ayres, and it is only an act of justice rendered 
to the Governor of Santa Fe, now to repeat the fact, as, two months 
after the peace was concluded, the intrusive rulers of Buenos Ayres had 
the bad faith to seek to tarnish the merit thereby acquired. In that 
same expedition, General Rivera, whom Rivadavia had declared a 
traitor, served with distinction. Ed. 



87 



public, as it is that the latter months of pay were never furnished to the 
contingent of his own Province, and that the undersigned has therein 
been compelled to negotiate a loan for the payment of this very debt, 
which still presses on the national treasury. 

The Province of Santa F£, after being involved in the injuries and 
outrages, inflicted upon all, by the events which happened on the 1st 
instant and the subsequent Manifesto, has been specially insulted by the 
provisional authority of Buenos Ayres. The undersigned Governor has 
further learnt, in a manner, deserving of full credit, that the Secretary- 
General has communicated to the deputies of Buenos Ayres, appointed 
to the national Legislature, orders to withdraw. Whatever may have 
been the causes which led to this resolution, it must be taken as a 
manifest contempt of the Treaty, concluded in this city on the 2nd of 
October, in last year, by the Commissioners of the respective govern- 
ments, and competently ratified by both authorities. By the 5th Article, 
the two Provinces are bound to send forward two deputies to the 
National Assembly, which was to be held here, or, in such other place 
as the majority of the Provinces might determine. This Assembly 
actually opened on the 25th of September, and the members still remain 
collected in this city. In consequence whereof, the Government of Santa 
F6 trusts that the Authorities of Buenos Ayres will revoke the aforesaid 
order ; or else, at once and according to the usual forms, put an end to 
the Treaty, for this purpose explaining the causes which justify the act. 
This Government does not go so far as to suspect that the authorities of 
Buenos Ayres will deem it humiliating to be required to fulfil engage- 
ments, of the most solemn and sacred kind. 

Such are the complaints which the Province of Santa Fe feels herself 
fully warranted in instituting against the Authorities of Buenos Ayres. 
If the undersigned acted from mere caprice, or allowed himself to be 
led away by the impulse of a noble passion, possibly, he might have been 
urged on to resort to the last resource ; but, he hopes to obtain, by 
means of this formal requisition, the explanations and the adoption of 
such measures as may satisfy the honour of his Province. Should this 
hope be frustrated, he will then avail himself of the means afforded to 
him by the 6th Article of the Convention of the 25th of January, 1822, 
agreed upon in the Quadrilateral Congress, held in this city, between 
the Province of Buenos Ayres, Corrientes, Entre Rios and Santa F6. 
The undersigned believes that the government of Buenos Ayres will, in 
that case, send forward its representative j but, if the contrary should 



88 



happen, or the conferences are not attended with a satisfactory result, 
the government of Santa F£ will, in that case, reluctantly feel itself 
obliged to sustain the dignity of the Province, in the only manner that 
may be left. 

The undersigned Governor salutes the Sr. Minister, to whom he ad- 
dresses himself. 

Signed. Estanislao Lopez. 
To the Minister and Secretary-General of the 
Provincial Government of Buenos Ayres. 



On no one of these points was the smallest satisfaction offered, or 
obtained, and Governor Lopez resolved to resort to the only expedient 
left, in order to put down the faction which had gained forcible posses- 
sion of the capital, dissolved the Union, and spread general alarm 
throughout the country. With this view, he assembled the disposable 
troops under his immediate command, and sent off requisitions for aid 
to the other Provinces. He had previously been informed by Rosas, 
Commander of the district Militia, under date of the 12th (December) 
that, after the battle of the 9th, which proved so fatal to Dorrego's for- 
tunes, the several corps under his orders had dispersed and taken 
various directions ; but could easily be re-assembled, as soon as they 
had a leader and a cause to fight for; observing, nevertheless, that they 
were destitute of arms and supplies, the great cause of their late mis- 
fortune. Governor Lopez made the best arrangements he could, under 
the pressure of the moment, and advanced towards Buenos Ayres ; 
at the same time ordaining Rosas to form a separate division of 
Militia and Indians, in order to support his own movements. Lavalle, 
seeing himself threatened with an early attack, and anxious to prevent 
the junction of the two chieftains, marched direct against Governor 
Lopez, trusting chiefly to the superiority of his cavalry and the expe- 
rience and disciplin of his infantry. The Santa F£ troops, however, for 
the moment, evaded a rencontre, by pursuing an unusual route, and 
proceeded direct towards the capital. This movement compelled Lavalle 
to retrace his steps ; but, on the 26th of April, meeting the Provincials 
at a place called Luxan, 12 leagues to the Westward of Buenos Ayres, 
he experienced a compleat defeat, and found himself compelled to with- 



89 



draw to the city, being no longer able to act on the offensive. Governor 
Lopez quietly continued his march, and issued the following proclama- 
tion, dated, Head Quarters, Bridge of Marquez, April 28, 1829. 

" Inhabitants of Buenos Ayres ! On treading the territory of your 
Province, I made known the causes of the present war, and without 
calumniating the enemies of the Republic, who hold a despotic sway 
over you, I exhibited the documents which clearly prove, that General 
Lavalle alone is answerable for the blood that is about to flow. The 
writers whom this General gained over to his own interests, have 
undertaken to express his opinions, for he observes the silence of des- 
perate men, whilst the only answer he makes to us, is, that we are 
assassins and malefactors. They have published that, by our orders 
and by us, such crimes are committed as, in all wars, are perpetrated 
only by the wicked and the lawless ; or those who resort to such acts, 
as a means of indulging in greater excesses. Hence have they been able 
to seduce a few foreigners, so as to have their support, and enable them 
the better to overawe a part of the inhabitants of the city, who, following 
the wishes of the nation, are their first enemies, and ready to rise up 
against them. When the voice of a small number of intriguers, the only 
one that is heard among them, upbraids us for atrocities which we have 
come to punish, silence on my part would be misplaced. Possibly, 
some of the inhabitants of the Southern districts have punished, with too 
severe a hand, the acts of violence of which they had previously been 
made the victims ; but, what were they to do when they beheld prisoners 
shot ; when Colonel Rauch put them to the sword, without any dis- 
crimination ; when Colonel Estomba bound them to the mouth of his 
cannon, in order to blow their mangled remains through the air ; when, 
with his own hand, he killed some of the unfortunate people who fell 
into his power, and when General Lavalle himself orders a whole family, 
at the bridge of Marquez, to be shot, merely because he found his 
enemies' cockade upon them ! 

" Inhabitants of Buenos Ayres ! Where is the crime in these unhappy 
beings refusing to submit to barbarian leaders, like these ? Such is their 
civilization, and such their principles ! No ; we are not highwaymen ; 
we have undertaken to bring that army back to its duty, which broke 
out into open rebellion, last December, and to deliver over to the 
tribunals those who murdered D. Manuel Dorrego, the depositary of the 
general command. I do not blame you ; we all know each other ; my 
words will only affect those who, in their own consciences, have reason 



90 



to dread our coming. Some foreigners, however, have been unmindful 
of their duty, and become the instruments of oppression. We know 
well what we owe to the subjects of foreign nations, and what they owe 
to us. The whole rigour of the war will fall upon those who wield 
arms against us ; and we will bear them in mind, unless they quit the 
ignominious position which they have assumed. 

" Inhabitants of Buenos Ayres ! On the 26th, the haughty pride of 
your tyrant was at an end. Have a goverment of your own, formed by 
yourselves, and my mission closes. That your prosperity may revive, 
is the most ardent wish of 

" Signed, Estanislao Lopez." 



Governor Lopez, on one side, and General Rosas, on another, ad- 
vanced and took up positions in the neighbourhood of the capital ; by 
this means cutting off supplies from the interior. Their great object 
seemed to be, to spare the destruction of property and the effusion of 
blood, by rousing the inhabitants to a sense of the perilous and degraded 
situation in which they were placed, and convincing Lavalle and his 
partisans of the impracticability of their designs, as well as the conse- 
quences of their obstinacy. Lavalle and his abettors, chiefly composed 
of place-hunters and men who had nothing to lose, had, in the mean- 
while, excited the prejudices and national pride of the Portenians, by 
reminding them of the degradation that would fall upon them, if they 
submitted to the Provincials, whom they designated by the name of the 
Montoneras. The press was also kept actively at work, and all the 
disposable funds laid out in encouraging the preparations for defence. 
The streets, opening to the country, were intrenched, and Lavalle's 
operations confined to cover the town. In this state of things, a cor- 
respondence took place between him and Governor Lopez, for the 
purpose of coming to some arrangement, in the course of which it 
turned out that, independent of the character of Governor of Santa F£, 
the latter had been appointed " Commander in Chief of the Army 
destined to sustain the cause of the nation and its rights," by the Gene- 
ral Delegates of the Provinces, assembled in the last-mentioned city. 
This correspondence was attended by no beneficial result ; both parties 
retaining their respective positions. Lavalle, in the interval, endea- 



91 



voured to spread terror and alarm among the inhabitants, by resorting 
to all kinds of base expedients, which gave rise to the following pro- 
clamation of General Rosas. 

" May 8th, 1829. 

" Portenians, countrymen, and foreigners, falsely deluded ! The un- 
dersigned General deeply deplores the spilling of American blood, with- 
out any other cause than the caprice of a few ungrateful men, who seem 
to have no other object in view than the devastation of that country in 
which we were born and educated. 

" Do not, countrymen ! be so unjust as to believe me your scourge, 
as that band of sanguinary usurpers seek to represent me ; but, a towns- 
man — a friend and a commander, who has only at heart the welfare of 
Buenos Ayres and her sons ; one who is interested in the cause that has 
cost us so much blood, and does not seek to injure the deluded. He 
may impose by his forces ; but, his only wish is to reestablish public 
order. 

" Be assured that he will respect your persons, opinions and pro- 
perties, as well as every thing else that is held sacred in society. Your 
faithful and dearest friend, 

" Signed, Jose Manuel Rosas." 



According to the last detailed accounts from Buenos Ayres, which 
correspond to the 26th of May, the public distress in the city had 
reached a most alarming height. Cut off from external supplies, beef, 
which was formerly so extremely abundant, could scarcely be purchased; 
and fruit and vegetables were at an enormous price. Lopez occupied 
the surrounding country to the West and North, to within the distance 
of a league from the city, with 3,500 men; whilst Rosas held his 
positions to the South, with 5,000, principally composed of militia and 
Indians. His parties have occasionally entered to a short distance from 
the Square of La Victoria, situated in the centre of the city, and called 
so ever since the invasion of the British, in 1807, under General White- 
lock. Commerce was at a stand ; the shops shut up ; the inhabitants 
compelled to be continually under arms, and the general distress con- 



92 



siderably aggravated by the alarming depreciation of the paper-currency, 
the dobloon being at 71 to 72 dollars, in paper, and dollars bearing a 
premium of 335 per cent. In the intervening country, skirmishes and 
partial actions daily took place, in sight of the town. The Provincials 
are designated by the appellation of Federals, and Lavalle's party by that 
of Unitarians. 

Whilst all this was going on, a serious dispute occurred between 
Lavalle and the French Consul. The former, desirous of rendering his 
defence as effective and cheap as he could, issued an injunction for all 
resident foreigners to take up arms and join a regiment, called del Orden. 
Among the parties, thus forced into the service, were several French- 
men, an act which their Consul considered contrary to that neutrality 
under which the subjects of His Most Christian Majesty had come to 
that country, with the peaceable view of carrying on the pursuits of com- 
merce. He publicly protested against the measure and remonstrated 
with the Government. Receiving no satisfaction, and finding that 
Lavalle persisted in his design, M. Mandeville, the Consul, embarked, 
with his family and several of his countrymen, on board of vessels, 
lying in the harbour, and, some evenings afterwards, the French naval 
commander took forcible possession of the vessels belonging to the 
State, and retained them, in the way of reprisal, and until satisfaction 
was given for the insult offered to the Consul and the residents under 
his protection, as well to force the government to a settlement of the 
claims for spoliations, which he had been directed to institute. This 
matter requires a short explanation, which will, at the same time, serve 
to convey a more correct idea of the principles of that administration by 
which Buenos Ayres has been agitated and oppressed, as well as the 
Provinces insulted and sacrificed, for the last several years. 

Rivadavia's government, by the nature of the secret instructions 
given to the privateers, under the Republican flag, actually declared the 
whole coast of Brazil, that is, an extent equal to 30 degrees, in a state 
of blockade, without having a single vessel, belonging to the Union, 
capable of cruizing on any one given point. It further declared all 
kinds of provisions to be contraband of war, by which means, he ren- 
dered the principal articles, constituting the commerce of the United 
States, liable to seizure. The measure was in itself so monstrous, and 
the consequences attendant on its execution, so serious, that the priva- 
teers generally did not venture to avail themselves of so absurd an 
authority ; at length, one, however, captured a North American vessel, 



93 



laden with flour, entering Rio de Janeiro, and brought her in, as a prize, 
to Buenos Ayres. At this period, Rivadavia's government had ceased, 
and although that of S r - Dorrego disapproved of the act and pointed out 
to the prize court the illegality, as well as the monstrosity of the 
capture, the Judges, all creatures of Rivadavia and being besides totally 
independent of the executive power, condemned the vessel and cargo, 
thus giving rise to serious claims and remonstrances on the part of the 
Washington government. Conduct so strange, as this, can only be 
explained in one way. Rivadavia and his friends were themselves con- 
cerned in privateers, as, with great truth, Lord Strangford once 
asserted was the case, in the House of Lords, and their great object was, 
to have prizes and condemn them, when they were valuable, as the 
State would have to pay the subsequent damages, the only risk, run by 
the captor, being a security for ten thousand dollars, in many instances, 
merely nominal. This arbitrary and disgraceful mode of fitting out 
privateers, and which has, in fact, made the seas swarm with cruizers, 
deserving of no better a name than pirates, gave rise to claims of a 
similar nature, on the part of the British and French Governments, and 
as the three nations had just received satisfaction from the Emperor of 
Brazil, for captures under his own blockade of the River Plate, it was 
naturally to be expected that they would seek the same redress from 
Buenos Ayres ; but the French naval commander availed himself of the 
opportunity of also avenging a national insult. The vessels seized by 
him, were afterwards given up, on receiving satisfaction, part of which 
was, that his countrymen on shore should be left unmolested. The Consul 
obtained his passport and proceeded to Montevideo. We shall close the 
present series of illustrative papers, relating to the present position of 
the Argentine Republic, by the following extract of an English letter 
from Buenos Ayres, dated May 26. 

" Our miseries have not ended ; but, they cannot now last long. 
Lavalleand his partisans, who begin to feel that their necks are in jeo- 
pardy, have nearly expended all the resources which they were able to 
wring from the wretched and terrified inhabitants, without gaining a 
single point, or securing one sincere and disinterested friend. His 
popularity is on the decline, whilst the illusions of his flatterers, among 
whom the most active are the editors of the papers in his pay, are also 
losing their effect. His principles are, besides, now better understood. 
His doctrine is, that the army is paramount to every other power, and 
that its will ought to be the law. He holds the strong and fortified 
position of the Chacra de Paduan ; but his army literally may be called 

N 






94 



one of Observation. He does not venture to fight, nor will he negotiate. 
Deputations of the citizens have waited upon him ; reminding him of 
the lamentable state of the country, and urging him to accept of terms, 
without further effusion of blood. He, however, turns a deaf ear to all 
reasons and intreaties, well aware that, from the moment he loses the 
support of his Pretorian guards, his downfal, if not his trial is 
inevitable. 

"In the mean while, Lopez gains friends. His judicious and temperate 
conduct has overcome the prejudices at first entertained against him, 
arising out of national pride. The cause of the Federals and the order 
and regularity of their leaders, contrasted with the ambitious and 
sanguinary acts of those restless and aspiring men, who have plunged 
the country into its present calamity, have indeed raised Lopez high in 
public estimation, notwithstanding the denunciations and the scurrilous 
attacks continually levelled against him and Rosas by that portion of the 
press, ready to support usurpation and misrule. Alvear, Diaz-Velez, 
Rodriguez and Soler, are still Lavalle's principal props. They are im- 
plicated, and deeply too. Should a new order of things be established, 
they, and some of their underlings, will be brought to trial, if they do 
not make a timely retreat, as another similar set of our late leaders 
have done. The Unitarians, as this party is called, notwithstanding 
their superior discipline, fine uniforms, and bright arms, do not seem 
so fond of meeting their enemies, whom at first they affected to despise, 
designating them as a mere armed rabble. They, however, keep at a 
respectful distance, having several times been very roughly handled by 
them. Near the Recoleta, the other day, there was a smart skirmish, in 
which the city folks lost 16 and the Provincials 7. Every time the former 
attempt a movement, either in search of forage, or cattle, they are 
driven in. We are included in the attacks of Lavalle's editors. Mr. 
Parish and the late French Consul are represented as the chief movers 
of the Provincials, merely because they did not approve of Dorrego's 
murder which, among other things, Lopez is come to avenge, and 
would not allow their countrymen to be pressed into a war, stirred up 
merely for the purpose of gratifying the ambition of a few worthless 
leaders. There is not a British functionary, who has been employed 
here, or at Rio, that is not now loaded with their insults and invectives 
Our mediation in the late peace with Brazil, is a theme of endless and 
bitter reproach, notwithstanding it was solicited and has prevented the 
country from falling to pieces. If it had not been for this last and, I 
may add, greater calamity, the country, by management, would have 



95 



gradually recovered. As it is, God only knows what will be the issue. 
There is some consolation, however, in thinking that the crisis cannot 
last long. Mr. Parish principally remains at his country seat, near the 
town, where he has a guard of marines from on board the Cadmus. 
He observes a strict neutrality in the present contest. 

" In my last, I told you that Rivadavia, the known Director-General 
of the late conspiracy, is gone off to France, accompanied by hi? 
old associates, Curate Aguero, the Frenchman, Barennes, and a 
few others of the same kidney. The atmosphere here became too 
warm for them, from the moment they learnt that Lopez was coming 
with a considerable force, and it would be impossible to prevent the 
town from falling, sooner or later, into his hands. They also became 
alarmed at the indignation expressed by the foreign agents, and the 
impossibility of controlling Lavalle, when he had once gained the as- 
cendency. They therefore packed up their dobloons, and very saga- 
ciously, bent their way to Europe, not, it is thought, with plans of new 
loans, mining or colonizing schemes, but, literally, to save their necks, 
for, after the repeated declarations of the Provincials, if these blood- 
suckers had fallen into their hands, they would have fared badly. Pre- 
vious to their embarkation, they slept several nights in the fortress, 
as a place of safety, for if the inhabitants of the town had not been 
overawed by Lavalle 's troops, who granted them his entire protection, 
they would have torn them to pieces. It is a query with the British 
here, whether Rivadavia will have the courage to revisit England, after 
the pretty pranks which he played there. In case he should, and as a 
kind of reception, a statement of the London jobs and the participation 
in them of his co-associates, is now preparing and is to be sent on. It 
is but just, after the British public have been sacrificed, that they should 
know the real parties who duped them, and then laughed at their cre- 
dulitv." 



THE END. 



REDFORD AND ROBINS, 
36, London-road. 



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